by John Bierce
The rooms set aside for Avah and Irrick passed Deila’s inspection— barely. Avah’s grandmother reminded them to come say goodbye before the Owl left harbor, then she dragged Alustin away to inspect the dining halls.
“So where are your rooms?” Avah asked. Their tour hadn’t made it up here on the last visit.
“Right this way,” Sabae said.
Hugh struggled to hold back a smirk.
“Alustin and Godrick’s dad decided it would be most convenient to move us all into adjacent rooms,” Sabae said, leading them the short distance from the guest dorms to their hallway.
“This is my room,” Sabae said, opening her door. The wards Hugh had installed for the others on their rooms were more subtle than the ones on his room, but they were powerful nonetheless, and wouldn’t let anyone outside of their group open their doors. That didn’t even mention the sturdy, conventional locks on the doors.
Sabae’s walls were covered in thick, embroidered wall hangings and tapestries from Ras Andis, and she had a thick patterned rug softening the stone floor. She’d covered all the glowcrystals in the room, save the one above her desk, with thin fabric coverings to soften the light. The whole room was a wash of color. All of her books, homework, clothes, and other items were neatly put away, and her bed was precisely made without a wrinkle— it was rare for Sabae’s room to be anything but spotless. There weren’t any windows, but then, none of the dorm rooms had windows.
Avah promptly had to inspect all of Sabae’s decorations in detail, of course.
“This is part of how you can tell that Avah plans on captaining her own ship someday,” Irrick confided to the others. “You can’t take her anywhere near anything that even vaguely resembles trade goods without having her inspect them.”
Hugh imagined himself living on a ship full time— Librarians Errant traveled all the time, so it wouldn’t be impossible. Alustin actually spent far more time at Skyhold than most of his order since he’d taken on apprentices.
Eventually, Irrick dragged Avah out so they could continue the tour.
Talia’s room was almost the exact opposite of Sabae’s. The room was almost entirely filled with clutter. Weapons and animal bones of all sorts hung on her walls or were propped up in the corners. Her desk was covered with jumbled papers and stacks of novels, and more heaps of books and bones turned the floor into a maze. At least one of her glowcrystals had been shattered somehow, and there were quite a few suspicious looking burn marks on the walls. Talia’s bed was a tangled heap of blankets, pillows, and at least one wolf pelt.
“I feel like I’d trip on a pile of books and disembowel myself on a battleaxe if I tried to walk through here,” Irrick said.
Talia gave him an affronted look. “I keep all of my weapons properly put away, thank you very much.”
“Is that a spiked flail underneath your bed?” Avah asked.
Hugh peered under the bed as best as he could from this angle. Sure enough, there was a flail lying underneath the bed.
“When did you get that?” he said. “I thought you weren’t planning on taking flails to any of the Midwinter balls.”
Talia gave him a dirty look, but Avah interrupted first, grabbing Hugh’s arm. “Midwinter ball? As in dancing and such?”
“Yeah,” Hugh said. “There’s a few of them on Midwinter night.”
“And you weren’t going to take me?” Avah asked.
“Of course I was,” Hugh said.
Honestly, he hadn’t really thought about it that much— he hadn’t attended any of the festivities last Midwinter night. At the time, he’d only just met Talia and Sabae, and he preferred to spend every moment he could avoiding other people.
“I’m going to need to fetch a few more things from the ship before it leaves, then,” Avah said, smiling.
“Fetching later, more tours now!” Irrick said.
They probably should have started with Godrick’s room, Hugh thought. Compared to the other stops on the tour, it was almost disappointingly normal. There were a few books and papers scattered around, but Hugh wouldn’t call it messy, by any means, just a little untidy. The only things of note were Godrick’s enchanted warhammer propped up in one corner and his oversized bed.
Irrick, of course, immediately strode into the room and flopped right down onto the bed. He shifted a bit, testing it out, then sat up and smiled. “Roomy,” he said, waggling his eyebrows at Godrick.
It was Hugh’s turn to get to enjoy one of his friends being embarrassed now, and he savored every moment of it.
It did honestly feel a little strange to Hugh that embarrassment might not always be unpleasant. Before he’d gotten to know his friends, it had always been miserable for him, but it was somehow… comfortable now. He knew that there was no cruelty to his or his friends’ enjoyment, which made a world of difference.
“Please, like you didn’t see this room last time we were here,” Avah said, sticking her tongue out at Irrick.
Godrick looked a little more uncomfortable now, so Hugh quickly spoke up. “Who wants to see my room?”
He could tell his friends were struggling to contain their laughter at that.
They went down the hall to the next door down, Avah and Irrick bickering cheerfully the whole way.
Avah pushed right up to the front next to Hugh as he opened the door…
To an empty room, save for a single thin blanket and small pillow on the floor.
Avah and Irrick just stared at the room, dumbfounded. “Is that…” Avah said, “is that really your room? You’re messing with me, right?”
Hugh opened his mouth to respond, but simply burst out laughing instead. His friends all started laughing as well.
“Yeh ruined it, Hugh,” Godrick said when he caught his breath.
“We were going to see how long we could get you to believe this was Hugh’s actual room for.” Sabae said, “If, you know, Hugh could keep a straight face.”
This room actually sort of was Hugh’s room— Alustin doubted the Academy would be overly fond of him sleeping in the library, so he’d set up a fake dorm room for Hugh. He never used it, but it was there. They’d just moved all the furniture to a nearby empty room for the prank.
“He really would be the best kind of opponent to play in cards,” Irrick mused.
“Oh?” Hugh asked.
“The kind yeh can always beat,” Godrick said.
Everyone burst out laughing, including Hugh.
“Come on,” Hugh said, “let’s show you my actual room.”
Midwinter came quickly after that. Their classes had already started to wind down, and even Alustin seemed ready to give them a break— according to him, he wanted to make them into great mages, not break them, and a little downtime was important.
Godrick’s father hosted Godrick’s seventeenth birthday gathering, since none of their rooms were big enough to comfortably fit everyone. Artur’s rooms were enormous— all of their rooms could probably fit inside. Artur even had his own kitchen— and, to everyone’s delight, was an excellent chef.
He’d also magically shaped all his own furniture out of stone, except for the cushions, which definitely gave his apartment a distinctive feel.
Given how many people were there, Godrick had a fairly large pile of presents.
Talia had commissioned an enchanted shaving razor for Godrick— nothing fancy, it just never needed to be sharpened. She’d also had the Clan Castis flames added to it, so that Hugh, Sabae, and Godrick all had Clan Castis marked gifts.
Hugh was jealous— not of the razor, but of the fact that Godrick needed to shave more than once a week. Actually, he was a little jealous of the razor— he was pretty terrible at shaving, and there were, unfortunately, no shaving cantrips he’d been able to find so far.
Sabae had gotten Godrick a scent magic spellbook— an impressive find, given how rare scent mages were.
Hugh was particularly proud of his present for Godrick. He’d fashioned him a thick, T-shaped quartz
faceplate for his stone armor— now that Godrick could fashion a helmet as well, his eye and mouth holes were among his few points of vulnerability. The faceplate he’d fashioned probably wouldn’t stop a direct hit with a spell or weapon, but it would certainly turn glancing blows and keep debris out of his eyes better than the empty holes he had now.
Hugh had also fashioned it with several breathing holes surrounded by wards that would prevent dust, smoke, and various toxins from moving through them. This was a fairly common ward, so Hugh had only needed to modify it for moving around on a helmet.
Avah and Irrick had gotten Godrick a box full of all sorts of hammers, ranging from a tuning hammer smaller than Hugh’s pinkie to a mallet half the size of Godrick’s sledgehammer. Godrick, of course, thought it was hilarious.
Artur seemed a little embarrassed at his gift— he’d just bought Godrick a new set of formal wear. His self-deprecation had promptly been shouted down by the group, however, who had all happily gorged themselves on his cooking.
Plus everyone agreed that Godrick looked excellent in it.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Midwinter
The Midwinter ball they’d chosen to attend was being held in a ballroom built into an outcrop that jutted out of the side of Skyhold towards the Skyreach Mountains. Three walls of the ballroom were open to the night, with only rows of— admittedly massive— columns holding up the outcrop above them.
The ballroom was lit by a series of massive floating glow crystals that hovered just below the ceiling, orbiting one another in a stately, intricate waltz.
Hugh, Godrick, and Sabae were waiting a little ways from the entrance for the others. Godrick was wearing his new formalwear, and Hugh and Sabae were just wearing their formal school uniforms.
Hugh was sorely tempted to sneak over to the wards inlaid into the floor between the columns. He was guessing their main function was keeping wind and temperature extremes out. The Endless Erg and the Skyreach Range bordering it had cooled off quite a bit as Midwinter approached, but Hugh wouldn’t label it as anything like an actual winter. Still, nights in the desert were always chilly.
Sabae nudged Hugh. “Talia’s here, and she’s got a date!” she said.
Hugh turned around promptly at that. Talia hadn’t said a word about having a date.
She also hadn’t said a word about her outfit.
Talia was wearing an elegant, slim blue dress that perfectly matched the color of her spellform tattoos. The dress left her arms and shoulders exposed, but she wore matching gloves reaching up most of the way to her elbows. Both the gloves and dress bore intricate embroidered red spellforms that exactly matched the shade of her hair— which was done up in one of those deceptively simple looking hairstyles that must have taken her hours to pull off, especially considering how difficult her hair was to manage most of the time. She also had a large necklace dangling around her neck. She was even wearing an elegant pair of sandals that laced up her calves, instead of her usual heavy boots.
As Talia and her date drew closer, Hugh turned his attention to her date. To his surprise, he recognized him from their cryptography class. He was tall— taller than Sabae, though not anywhere near as tall as Godrick— good looking, and had the copper skin of a resident of southeastern Ithos.
Hugh was pretty sure his name was… Ussif? Uldan? Definitely something like that.
“Everyone,” Talia said as they approached, “you remember Phusan from cryptography?”
Close enough.
Everyone nodded and said hello, though Sabae sighed theatrically. “I thought you weren’t bringing a date,” she said with a smile. “Now I’m the only one of us without one tonight. I’ll have to pine tragically by the snack table, all alone while you all dance.”
“And ah thought yeh were bringin’ a spiked flail ta the ball,” Godrick said. “And ah certainly didn’t expect yeh ta come unarmed.”
Talia scowled at him. “I told you I wasn’t bringing a flail— that’s a terrible choice for a dance. And I’m not unarmed.”
Phusan gave her a slightly confused look at that.
“You definitely look unarmed,” Hugh said.
Talia rolled her eyes, and pulled her dress up her right calf, revealing a sheathed dagger strapped to her tattooed calf. “Magic dagger from the labyrinth,” she said.
She dropped the dress on that side and revealed a dagger strapped to her other calf. “My newest toy,” she said fondly.
Something looked a bit odd about it to Hugh, but he didn’t know enough about daggers to tell what— though it also bore enchantment spellforms.
Talia dropped her dress and reached into the top of her right glove, pulling out a short, thin, and flat throwing knife. “Throwing knife sheathes built into my gloves,” she said, pulling yet another out of the top of her right glove, then tucking both away with a flourish.
Talia reached into the back of her dress, pulling out a thin coiled wire. “Garrote,” she said, looking proud as could be.
Hugh was genuinely nervous that one of the faculty might see Talia showing off her weapons and kick them out of the ball, but Sabae and Godrick were struggling to contain their laughter.
Phusan was definitely looking a little uncomfortable.
Talia tucked away the garrote again and pointed to her hair. “They’re not strictly weapons, but I have six of the lock pick hairpins Godrick gave me for my birthday in my hair.”
Godrick chuckled. “Yeh certainly came prepared, ah’ll give yeh that much. How long did…”
Talia interrupted him. “I’m not done yet!” She reached down to her sandal, pulling on a blue bead stuck to the back of her right sandal’s heel. It came right out, revealing a thin needle engraved with intricate spellforms. “Tracking pin— tuck it into someone’s clothes, you can pinpoint what direction they’re in with a simple cantrip.”
“That pun was the most painful weapon yet,” Sabae muttered.
Talia stuck her tongue out at Sabae as she inserted the tracking pin back into her sandal. She then pulled a matching pin from her left sandal. “And this one’s got a sobriety enchantment on it. Jab it into someone and pump mana into it, they’ll sober up in minutes. It’ll be really messy, though. Would be kind of fun to use this on a handsy drunk.”
Talia paused. “At least, I think the tracking pin is on the right and the sobriety pin is on the left. I really should have gotten them with different color heads.”
“Couldn’t you just use the tracking cantrip to tell?” Sabae asked.
“Oh yeah!” Talia said.
She closed her eyes and concentrated for a few seconds, then frowned. “Huh. I guess I left the tracking pin in my room. So which one did I bring instead?”
Talia looked concerned for a minute, then just shrugged. “And then I’ve got this,” she said, pointing to her necklace.
Hugh focused on it, then sighed. It was a sturdy silver chain bearing a series of bone beads, with a series of long, thick bone needles dangling down from it. They were clasped onto the necklace with thin loops attached to their blunt ends.
“I can tear all of these off individually without breaking the necklace,” Talia said. “This one right here is carved from a chunk of whale bone— when I do my stuff with it, it sends drops of burning oil everywhere. I got the idea from a novel I read, where a ship’s crew is stranded on an island in the far north, and has to burn whale bones to stay warm. They’re full of oil and quite flammable.”
“We need a proper name for the way you explode bones,” Sabae said. “You guys name all of my techniques, so it’s only fair.”
“Bonefire,” Hugh said idly.
“That’s way ta obvious,” Godrick said. “And what, are we goin’ ta call it bonefirin’ when Talia actually starts the process?”
“It’s obvious, sure, but it’s still the best name for it,” Hugh said. “And no, we’ll just call the process of actually doing it igniting it.”
Talia cleared her throat pointedly. “I wasn’t done
yet,” she said, then pointed to the next needle. “This one’s made from birdbone— a hawk of some sort, I think. Barely had to carve it into shape. Birdbones grow and detonate much faster, thanks to being hollow and light, I think, but they don’t explode as hard.”
Phusan was looking a bit overwhelmed at this point.
“This one’s carved from a cuttlebone,” Talia said. “Cuttlefish use them to help control their buoyancy by altering the mix of gas and fluid in them. When I ignite them— thank you, Hugh— the explosion is mostly just a blast of superheated air.”
“And this one is a squid pen,” Talia said, pointing to the next one down the necklace. “Only bone squids have in their body. Barely had to carve it at all. It blasts out choking black smoke when it explodes, I think because… Are you all even still paying attention? I have quite a few to go.”
Hugh was, in fact, not paying attention any longer. Avah had just walked in the room alongside Irrick, and he was having trouble paying attention to anything else at the moment.
Godrick would have normally been quite amused by Talia’s frustration, her date’s uncomfortable expression, or the fact that Hugh was staring so hard at Avah that his jaw had literally dropped open— Godrick had thought that was just a figure of speech, he’d never actually seen it happen before.
He was barely paying attention to that, however. Godrick was fairly sure he looked as silly staring at Irrick as Hugh did at Avah.
Irrick was wearing a sleek, well-fit suit that reminded Godrick of nothing more than sand being hit by midday sun. He’d had his usually messy hair cut down almost to the scalp on the sides and back, and a little longer on top. He’d even found an elegant little yellow flower to tuck behind one ear.
Godrick gulped, trying to regain his composure— or at least try not to stare at how Irrick’s calves looked in his suit.
Irrick smiled at Godrick as he sauntered up to him, gently running a finger down Godrick’s chest. Godrick realized that all the spit in his mouth had mysteriously vanished, leaving it bone dry.
Someone had definitely perfected some sort of mouth drying cantrip. Yep. That was it.