Sandqueen (Rise To Omniscience Book 7)

by Aaron Oster

  He didn’t even look up as she entered, swinging the hammer down hard, only to have the chisel shatter under the blow, sending fragments of metal flying throughout the room. Grace, who was still at the tunnel exit, was perfectly fine. Ivaldi wasn’t as fortunate and let out a curse as several of the fragments tore into his hand and arm.

  “Are you okay?” Grace asked, rushing over to see if she could help.

  “I’m fine!” Ivaldi snapped, shaking his hand and sending a shower of crimson droplets to the ground. “Just a few cuts. It’s not like I haven’t been hurt before.”

  “Let me at least look at it,” she said, walking over to him as he pulled a rag from one of the drawers.

  “I said, I’m fine,” the old dwarf insisted.

  But Grace wasn’t one to back down, especially since Ivaldi had likely saved her life just a few short weeks ago.

  “Stop being so stubborn,” she said, slapping the hand with the dirty rag away and grabbing his injured arm.

  “I can take care of myself,” Ivaldi muttered as Grace pulled the hand up, but didn’t otherwise protest as she began turning it this way and that.

  His hand was rough and covered in callouses – likely the result of years of handling heavy and dangerous objects – and had more than a few gleaming fragments of metal poking from the skin.

  “I’m going to need a tweezer or piler,” she said, looking up from his hand and making sure to meet his eyes.

  For just a moment, Grace was sure the dwarf would refuse, tug his hand from her grip and kick her out. However, after a few seconds, Ivaldi pulled one of the drawers open and began rummaging around, muttering to himself all the while.

  “Here,” he said, handing over a pair of very well-kept pliers.

  It was a bit large for Grace’s much smaller hand, but the tip was quite fine. Besides, her hand didn’t need to stay the size it was right now.

  “Well, that’s an interesting trick,” Ivaldi said as her hand grew until it was large enough to hold the pliers comfortably.

  “Yeah, it definitely comes in handy,” Grace said, moving the tip of the instrument to latch onto the first scrap of metal. “No pun intended.”

  “Ow! Watch it!” Ivaldi yelled as she plucked the piece from his skin, causing more blood to well up.

  “Stop being such a baby,” Grace replied, concentrating on getting them all out.

  “If you weren’t so rough, I wouldn’t be complaining,” Ivaldi shot back.

  “If I wasn’t here to take them out, then you probably would have just left them in there,” Grace replied, plucking another metal shard from his palm. “They would have gotten all infected, and you could have lost the hand.”

  “I have plenty of metal stuck in me, and I’m just fine,” Ivaldi insisted.

  “Yeah? Well, what if you wouldn’t have been?” Grace said, looking up to meet his eyes. “You would have lost one of your hands. Imagine trying to forge anything with just one hand.”

  “I could have built myself another one,” Ivaldi muttered.

  Grace didn’t reply, merely yanking another piece of metal from his skin and turning his hand over. She worked in silence for the next half a minute, pulling the largest pieces first, and then moving on to the smaller fragments.

  “I’ve noticed that your pal hasn’t come back,” Ivaldi said, breaking the silence.

  “Well, he might have tried to send me in here to convince you to hand over the location of the serum’s ingredients,” Grace replied, not even bothering to hide the truth.

  Ivaldi was smart, and he’d probably already guessed as much. There was no point in trying to hide it.

  “Obviously,” Ivaldi snorted. “I’m not going to give it to you, by the way.”

  Grace replied by yanking another shard from his hand, though with a little more force than might have been necessary.

  “Why are you so against helping other people?” Grace asked, dropping the shard onto the table.

  “It’s not that I’m against helping. But I just don’t see why my inventions should be used to help aid war efforts.”

  “You had no problem forging Morgan that spear,” Grace replied. “And I can’t help but notice that this room is practically brimming with weapons.”

  “Ah, but weapons are merely instruments of war, a means to an end,” Ivaldi explained. “Sticking a sword through someone’s gut will likely end them, thus, shortening the overall length of the war and bringing it to a close sooner. But, if that person were to receive a shot of my serum, they would be back up on their feet and killing again within minutes.

  “Think about the implications of everyone having access to something like that. Wars would rage endlessly as both sides hacked each other to pieces. Death would become more gruesome, as people tried to assure that their victims could not be healed, and captured enemies will be less likely to receive mercy.

  “People will behave more recklessly, throwing themselves into harm’s way, confident that they’ll be fine, so long as they have the serum. The world will devolve into chaos, and soon enough, there will be nothing left…”

  Ivaldi lapsed into silence, giving Grace a few moments to think about what he’d said.

  “I guess I never thought of it that way,” she replied. “Though don’t you think that’s a bit of a stretch?”

  “No,” Ivaldi said flatly. “I don’t. Unlike you, I’ve been alive long enough to see what happens when you give people something that can either save millions or be used to kill just as many. While the races of Faeland like to look down on humans as brutal savages, we have plenty of our own right here. I refuse to allow my serum to be used in that way, which I why I will never relinquish the secret of the ingredients, nor how to properly mix it so that it doesn’t end up turning the recipient into a burning puddle of goo.”

  Grace immediately took note of that and mentally filed that information away. It seemed that not only did they need the right ingredients, but the proper refining process as well. If that were the case, then at least one of the ingredients would be highly volatile, which made her mission right now all the more important.

  “But what about all the people it could save? Thousands of people are injured every day in our lands, and not from fighting any wars. They’re often hurt while fighting off beasts, working at mills or in the fields, or even forging equipment for our farmers. I can’t count the number of times my father hurt himself and was forced to continue working despite that.

  “In just a few more years, he likely won’t even be able to continue supporting himself and will be forced to retire. And what will he do then?”

  “I’m sure you’ll take care of him,” Ivaldi muttered. “You’re probably going to make plenty of money off your human rulers just because of what you are.”

  Grace started at that and gave Ivaldi a troubled look. She was sure she’d never told him that she was a supermage, yet the dwarf seemed to have a strange way of knowing things he shouldn’t. Perhaps all of that came with age.

  “Sure, I will,” Grace said. “But what about all the other farmers who don’t have children to support them? What will they do?”

  Ivaldi muttered something unintelligible as Grace dropped the pliers, turning his hand over to make sure there was no metal left.

  “Looks like they’re all out,” she finally said, though she kept a firm hold on the hand, nonetheless. “Do you have any alcohol.”

  “None I’d want to waste on pouring out,” Ivaldi replied.

  Grace narrowed her eyes at him, and, sighing, the dwarf pulled a small metal flask from his hip.

  “Even if it can help those who don’t fight in wars, it will also make warfare far easier and more dangerous…Ow!”

  Ivaldi yelped as Grace upended the flask over his hand, turning it to coat all the cuts liberally in the strong-smelling solution.

  “What if I promise to ensure that I will only give over the recipe if we only use it to help those who actually need it, and never to heal those on the battl
efield?”

  “There’s no way you’d be able to uphold that,” Ivaldi snorted. “Even if you wanted to, your rulers would just do it anyway. Besides, do you really think you’d have what it takes to allow a young boy or girl to die when you know that just one shot could save their life?”

  “Probably not,” Grace said, setting the now empty flask down on the table.

  This time, she didn’t need to ask for the next item, as Ivaldi had already pulled a roll of bandages from another drawer and set them on the table.

  “But what if we made a rule that if the serum healed a soldier, they could not go back into battle for a certain length of time? For example, the amount of time it would normally take for the injuries to heal. And, if it would have otherwise been fatal, they would be dismissed from military service for good?”

  Ivaldi let out another snort as she began winding the bandage around his hand, making neat loops and pulling the ends tight before tying them off.

  “You seem to know what you’re doing here,” he said as she finally released his hand and stepped back.

  “As I said, my father has injured himself many times working out in the fields,” Grace replied. “So, what do you say to my proposal?”

  “It sounds fair, reasonable even, but there’s still no way that the rulers of your people will allow that to fly, especially if it could give them an advantage in the upcoming war.”

  Grace’s shoulders squared at that, and a hard look came to her eyes.

  “If you know what I am, and I’m sure you already know what Morgan can do, you can rest assured that we both have the ability to get what we want. And even if I can’t personally do it now, in a few years, I’ll have more than enough power to assert my authority. The only question is, do you trust me enough to uphold that promise?”

  17

  Morgan stood outside Ivaldi’s house, waiting silently for Grace to return. His eyes scanned over the mountainside, wishing more than anything to be able to use his Aura Sense and see if Breaker was still asleep beneath their feet. He could always travel into the Beast Zone, where the ambient reiki seemed to vanish, but right now, he was waiting for his student to return. He’d saddled her with a difficult task, one that he could not accomplish.

  At the same time, he was good at reading people – even if they were from another race – and was confident that if anyone could break the old dwarf’s tough shell, it would be Grace. If she’d managed to get through to him, made him feel good, laugh, smile and enjoy life despite Sarah’s absence, then she was more than capable of getting a recipe out of a grumpy dwarf.

  A light thrum came from the spear on his back at the thought of Ivaldi, and Morgan unslung the gleaming length of Godsteel. He had yet to really utilize it to its full potential, of that much he was sure, and he had a feeling that a lot of that lay in finally awakening whatever lay within its depths. He knew that this spear was alive, and the mere fact that he could feel her presence meant that he just had to keep trying.

  His mind flashed to Sarah as he stared down at the spear, knowing that this weapon was the only thing that could assure her return. The spear suddenly grew a bit warmer in his hands, and, once again, for just a moment, Morgan felt as though it were trying to say something.

  “What are you trying to tell me?” he asked in a low voice, gripping the length of silvery metal tighter.

  The spear’s consciousness grew just a bit sharper, and for just an instant, Morgan was sure he could hear it saying something.

  “I did it!”

  Grace’s excited shout broke the spell, and the spear’s consciousness dimmed, returning to its slow-moving, placid self. Morgan wanted to shout in frustration, but when he looked up to see the beaming face of his protégée, all traces of annoyance or anger were driven far from his mind.

  Her smile stretched from ear to ear, her teeth gleaming in the sunlight. Her eyes were crinkled at the corners, and the small dimples in her cheeks were on full display. Clutched in her hand, thrust into the air in a sign of victory, was a rolled-up piece of parchment. She was careful not to crush it in her excitement, but it was clear to him that she was only just managing to do so.

  “I knew you could,” Morgan replied, returning her smile in kind. “Well done.”

  Grace’s smile seemed to grow even wider at his praise. Her cheeks flushed a rosy pink in pleasure, but when Morgan stretched out a hand to take the parchment, she pulled it back.

  “Wait,” she said, her smile suddenly dying on her lips. “I convinced Ivaldi to give me the recipe, as well as the only way to refine it without it turning into a horrible poison, but there were a few conditions attached.”

  Morgan crossed his arms as he listened to Grace speak, feeling an enormous sense of pride building the longer she spoke. By the time she was done explaining their deal, it had taken all the willpower he had not to tear up. He had never been an emotional person, preferring to remain stoic in the face of almost anything. He allowed anger to show through from time to time, but only when it was called for.

  Being moved to tears by someone else’s actions was a completely foreign concept and one he was sure Grace would continue to do as time went on. Not only had she gotten the formula, but she’d done it in a way that didn’t compromise Ivaldi’s beliefs. It also went to show how much the dwarf trusted her word, and the fact that he would be willing to give up the formula was absolutely mind-boggling.

  “Does that sound okay?”

  Morgan’s train of thought was lost as Grace’s voice, now carrying a hint of uncertainty, broke through. He could see it in her eyes as well. She was afraid that he’d refuse her request and that she’d be powerless to stop him from taking the parchment from her. He crouched, placing a hand on her shoulder and meeting her eyes.

  “In all our time together so far, I don’t think I’ve ever been so proud of you,” he said, his voice soft. “Of course, we will uphold the promise you made. I would never make you go back on your word.”

  He pulled her in for a hug then, squeezing her tight for a few long moments before releasing her. When he pulled back, he could see the relief in her eyes. The tears, too. Those would be hard to miss. It seemed that while he had been able to keep his emotions in check, the young teenage girl could not.

  “Thank you,” she said, sniffing loudly and wiping at her eyes.

  Morgan took the proffered scroll without a word and opened it, allowing Grace a few moments to collect herself. There were just a few words written on the parchment. Next to them were small clippings of illustrations.

  2 Oz. Glowgrass

  3 Oz. Dimweed

  4 Oz. Tykeroot

  5 Oz. Wyrmsbane

  1 Lb. Firmroot

  1 Great-Jaw Ancient Tail Scale

  5 Oz. Arctic-Hydra Acid

  All ingredients can be gathered in the Glimmerlands. Glowgrass and Dimweed can only be found in swampy areas, while Tykeroot and Firmroot will only appear after the moon has risen. The Wyrmsbane will be growing in clumps near the Beast Zone containing the Ancient, which I have outlined below, and the Hydra can be found in a Beast Zone next to the capital.

  Below that were instructions on the refining process, none of which he understood. Morgan was now very glad he’d gotten the full recipe, as it seemed the human alchemists had been wrong about a lot of the ingredients. He had never heard of any of these, and the idea of having to face another hydra was not exciting.

  He did note that it had a different name, so perhaps it wouldn’t be as tough as the one he and Lumia had had to face.

  “Let’s get going,” he said, rolling up the parchment and tucking it into his Spatial Bag. “We’ve still got a lot of ground to cover, and it seems like we need to head to the Glimmerlands if we want to collect these ingredients.”

  “Isn’t that where the elves live?” Grace asked, getting an oddly fearful look on her face.

  “I think so,” Morgan said, turning so that she could get on his back.

  He was sure he must have ima
gined the fear, because what possible reason would Grace have to be afraid of elves? He honestly knew nothing about them, as he had yet to see one, so he didn’t know what to expect. If they were as dangerous and tenacious as the beastmen, they’d definitely have to be careful.

  ***

  Ragnar Hammerfist, King of the Dwarves, was enjoying a nice meal of roast duck and a particularly good beer with his wife, son, mother and brother, when a messenger all but barged in.

  “What is it?” he roared as the dwarf leaned over, heaving for breath.

  They all knew he didn’t like to be disturbed during mealtimes.

  “Urgent…communication,” the messenger panted.

  “It can wait until I’m done eating!” Ragnar yelled, already turning back to his food.

  “From the scout near Ivaldi’s forge,” the dwarf managed to get out.

  Ragnar, who had a duck leg halfway to his mouth, froze. He slowly turned on the messenger, lowering the leg and practically glaring holes through the dwarf’s face.

  “Then why the hell didn’t you lead with that?”

  Ragnar began gesturing with the duck leg, continuing to lay into the poor messenger.

  “I should have you flogged, beaten and dragged around on your arse, naked for the entire kingdom to see! I should…!”

  “Oh, calm down. You’ll give yourself a heart-attack, yelling like that!”

  Ragnar found the duck leg plucked from his fingers, followed by a hard smack to the back of his head.

  “What is it with you, woman?” he roared, whirling on his mother, the only one who would actually do something like that.

  “Is this any way for a king to behave?” his mother demanded, shouting back equally as loud. “Now, act your age and apologize to the poor messenger! He’s only doing his job!”

  The two of them continued to glare at one another, but ever so slowly, Ragnar began to back down. His mother was not someone to cross, and even old as she was, she could still beat him silly. He turned to the messenger, who looked both terrified and extremely uncomfortable, and muttered something unintelligible under his breath.