Warsinger

by James Osiris Baldwin

  “Withering Rose…” Was this… was this the tomb of Sachara? Surely there was no way.

  I let my fingers hover over the image, barely daring to breathe, before I tore my eyes away and looked to the golden casket. It seemed to beckon to me, calling me to open it. As I had in Taltos, I just didn't feel right about opening the casket and disturbing the dead, but when I laid my hand on it, the air of the room seemed to sigh before settling into a heavy, expectant cloak around my shoulders. The Mark of Matir tingled pleasantly.

  “Sorry, bro. Or sis. I don’t want to disturb you, but my Dark Lord compels me.” Grimacing, I put my shoulder to the heavy lid, and pushed.

  The metal was lighter than it looked. It rasped as it slid over, and a pleasant earthy smell bloomed out of the sarcophagus. It smelled like cedar, woody and resinous. When I looked in, I saw a smaller wooden coffin. It was vaguely man-shaped, and painted with bright colors that looked barely fifty years old, not over a thousand. Feeling more awkward by the second, I pushed that lid aside, and in doing so, revealed the occupant.

  The mummy was smaller than I'd expected, shrunken by time and desiccation. The body wasn’t bandaged up, but he seemed almost like he’d been magically cured, somehow. He lay in state, so perfectly preserved that I could still see the deep lines around his eyes. Dark leathery skin pulled back from twin rows of white teeth and clung tightly to the lines of his skull.

  “Not Sachara.” I let out a breath I hadn’t known I’d been holding. Something about the idea of a famous Empress being buried this close to a sewer just hadn’t seemed… right. This guy being here made more sense, because according to our minimap, we were about three hundred feet below the temple of Khors in the center of the university, and this man had definitely been a priest of Khors. The style of the robes, the cut and the length were all different, but the mummy’s clothing had once been a brilliant turquoise blue, and he wore a beautifully made toolbelt around his waist. He also had a magnificent false beard draped over his chest, woven from hair the same coppery metallic red of Suri's. It was made out of skillfully twisted rope braids capped with gold, perfectly preserved except for the strap that had held it onto his face. I glanced at the wisps of hair that clung to his scalp. They were black.

  On his right hand, this ancient artificer wore the finest spellglove I'd ever seen. It was an intricate, graceful device made of the same strange brassy metal that the Tomb Guardian had been crafted from. The sleeve of it was patterned in a surprisingly-modern looking hexagonal matrix, fitting over the back of his hand with a series of artificial tendons that allowed for delicate movements of the fingers. I'd worn motorcycle gloves with that same design. The tendons formed ridges over your knuckles when you clenched your fists. They were fucking awesome for punching people with.

  The other hand was clutched around the haft of a golden hammer with an elegant, bird-like design, and over that, a large starburst medallion on a chain. The chain was tarnished, and so fragile that it crumbled when I brushed my fingers over it. The medallion itself, however, didn't have a single green spot on it. I picked it up carefully and stared at it until my HUD gave me a tooltip.

  Ancient Medallion

  +5 Intelligence

  This ancient medallion is engraved with mysterious symbols in a language you do not understand. You will need to find someone capable of understanding its significance.

  “Is that all?” I frowned, puzzled. This guy had obviously been someone important, but that artifact seemed… well. Kind of basic. The hammer and spellglove, on the other hand, were not.

  Aurum Workhammer

  +2 Strength

  +15 to Metalshaping skills

  +20% Stamina while Crafting

  A hammer of ancient design wrought out of incorruptible aurum metal. Aurum tools can be used to forge Aurum parts. Can only be used by Artificers (All).

  The hammer was much heavier than it looked. I didn't have to be a genius to figure this thing was really fucking valuable. I stowed it in my Inventory, and then gently tried to slide the spellglove free. His elbow crackled and dislodged, and I winced as my fingers slipped and accidentally hit a button on the inside of his arm. The raised hexagon panel slid soundlessly into the gauntlet, and then the entire thing folded down from his elbow to his wrist, shuunk-shuunk-shuunk, until it was just a small fingerless glove encircled by a large golden manacle.

  “Wow.” I eased it off the mummy's hand, and tried it on. As soon as I pulled the glove onto my hand, the plates, tendons, and liquid crystal tubules unfolded, perfectly molding to the shape of my body. I flexed my fingers and grinned, then blinked as an item description appeared without me asking.

  Gauntlet of the Arch-Smith

  Soul-bound Magical Weapon

  Slot: Spellglove

  Item Class: Relic

  Item Quality: Legendary

  Mana Capacity: 2000

  Mana Discharge Rate: 97%

  Durability: 4%

  Weight: 1lb

  Special: Soul-Bound, Level Restriction (Level 40+), Class Restriction (Mages (all) and Artificers (all)).

  Crafted from the rare legendary metal aurum, this legendary spell-glove bears an unusual maker’s mark. An appraiser of historical artifacts might know more about it.

  Curious, I hit the switch and watched as the gauntlet unfolded itself along my arm. When I could slip it off, I went hunting for the Maker’s Mark. It was on the inside pad of the ring finger: a triangle with a double-barred cross underneath it. Didn’t seem that unusual to me.

  “Hmm. Maybe Rin or Ebisa would know what it means.” Even though I couldn't use the gauntlet myself, I was pleased. This thing was a god-tier artifact, and unlike the Spear - it wasn't cursed to shit by some fuckwad admin. Rin would explode into a cloud of glitter when she saw it. “Man... what is this place? And who are you, epic beard dude?”

  The mummy did not reply. I was grateful for that - but then, I remembered something. I could call shades now.

  “Hmm.” My eyes narrowed. I ran my tongue over my teeth while I switched the un-useable epic mage gauntlet for my much shabbier novice one. Then I raised my hand over the sarcophagus, concentrated, and uttered the magic words. “Suund'karon, Karalt, Binah!”

  [This corpse is too old to be used to raise a Shadow.]

  “Meh.” I sighed, and put the glove away. “Worth a shot.”

  “Hector, I just felt magic. What happened? Did you find anything?” Karalti stuck her head in, and her eyes widened when she saw the paintings. “Woah. Pictures.”

  “Yeah. Hella pictures.” I gestured around, still a little shocked to see it all myself. “I don’t know who this guy is, but I’m guessing he was an artificer that worked on this Warsinger. Do you know what this means?”

  “Nope!” Karalti said happily.

  “It means that, for some reason, the queen of frigging Dakhdir was here, in Karhad.” I gestured up at the painting. “This place is about two thousand years old. This tomb must have been built here when the fifth Triad – Grigori and Lirenian, Sachara and Withering Rose, Phaedra and Zarya – came to Myszno to repair Matir’s Dragon Gate.”

  Karalti’s eyes widened. “Ohhhh.”

  “But you know what this means?” I continued. “Nocturne Lament might not be the only Warsinger in Myszno. Your great-grandma five times removed said that Nocturne was the least of them… so what if Withering Rose is here, buried somewhere right under our feet? We could be sitting on it and not even know.”

  “Then we better find her and kick Baldr’s ass, huh?” Karalti leaned over the edge of the coffin and sniffed curiously. “We need to be careful in here, though. There's heaps of books, and scrolls, and magic stuff, and mana that's not... like... in great condition. If we disturbed something, it could start a fire, or make this place too toxic for archeologists to go in and out.”

  “Yeah, for sure.” I strung the medallion on some leather, hung it around my neck, and waited to feel smart. After a couple of seconds without some major Stephen Hawking-st
yle revelation about mathematics or space-time, I shrugged and turned back to the image over the tomb. “But you know what we are going to do?”

  “What?”

  “We're gonna grab that paper and charcoal and take rubbings of that engraved text outside,” I said. “And then we’re going to find someone who can translate it, because I’m pretty damn sure it’ll take us to where we need to go next.”

  Chapter 28

  I gathered the crew in Kalla Sahasi’s War Room, which was really just the ballroom, but with a table. The castle’s actual war-room was missing its ceiling thanks to one of the Demon’s catapults, so we’d moved the dining table in here and had set it up for meetings. I’d taken screenshots of the fresco and sent them to Suri and Rin, who were still looking off into space with expressions of curiosity and awe. Ebisa and Istvan couldn’t see them, so they had listened to our description. Karalti, who had, was busily devouring an entire raw carp at the other end of the table.

  “There were ten Warsingers, all created near the end of the Drachan War, and five Triads across a four-thousand-year span,” I said, looking around. “Each Triad is a team of six Starborn who have the ability to open the Dragon Gates and somehow access them to repair – or destroy – the Caul of Souls. The Caul itself incarnates the appropriate Starborn into Archemi if it’s being threatened with destruction.”

  “Six people? Not three?” Istvan asked.

  “The ‘Triad’ part of the Triad refers to the role each pair takes,” I replied. “The Paragon is a dragon and bonded rider pair in charge of the Spear of Nine Spheres.”

  “Hi! I’m the dragon!” Karalti waved to him, her cheeks bulging as she chewed.

  “The Artist pair are Artificers who manage the technical and mechanical aspects of the Gates, I guess,” I continued, looking to Rin and Ebisa, before my gaze slid over to Suri. “And the Warsinger pairing represents the Warsinger itself as well as the pilot who controls it.”

  “I see.” Istvan rubbed his chin. “You have the Spear of Nine Spheres, so you and Karalti are obviously the Paragon pairing. Are Rin, Ebisa, and Lady Suri…?”

  “Dunno,” Suri said. “I doubt it. I don’t know shit about Artifacts. Can’t speak for Rin and Red over there.”

  Ebisa, who had dressed in her red travelling leathers for the day, shook her head. “I’m not Starborn. I’m not an Artificer for that matter, either. I can look at Kanzo’s library of memories like a cookbook, and can tell people how to do something. Rin has to do all the actual work.”

  “YOU fixed the Spear?” I cocked my head at Rin.

  She nodded, blushing blue. “E-Ebisa did everything but hold the lathe, though! It was mostly her… I just… did what I was told!”

  If Ebisa had any eyes, she would have rolled them. “Modesty does not become you, kitten.”

  “I think I understand what this is about,” Istvan said. “But I have a question. Why are we searching for these Warsingers to fight Baldr, to the exclusion of other options? Vlachia is one of the most magically advanced civilizations in the world. Surely we can take down this man and his dragons.”

  Suri grunted. “Wouldn’t count on it.”

  “It’s not just the dragons I’m worried about.” I began taking out the sheaves of wax rubbings we’d made at the tomb, laying them out along the table. “I want them, or at least their technology, to fight the Drachan if or when they break out of their cage. They were made specifically to fight Void creatures. How they do that, exactly, we don’t know, but every story, myth, and old wives’ tale we’ve read agrees with the historical accounts.”

  “Hmm.” Istvan sucked on one of his teeth, then nodded. “Fair enough. But I remain skeptical. The one you found was able to be defeated by a single Starborn – you – and you didn’t even have Karalti with you to help.”

  “Nocturne Lament was, in Lahati’s words, the ‘smallest and weakest’ of the Warsingers,” I said. “It was in bad shape. The only reason it was moving at all was because it was also a revenant. Each one of the Warsingers has an… uh… animating spirit in it. This one’s spirit had somehow managed to seize control of the artifact and was puppeteering it around, but it was dumb as shit and I was able to trick it into destroying itself. I can assure you that if Nocturne had been piloted by a human being while I was fighting it, I’d be so fucking dead right now. That thing was horrifying.”

  “Istvan raises a good point, though.” Ebisa gestured with a hand. “We’ve had a chance to examine Nocturne Lament, and about eighty percent of it will have to be rebuilt from scratch if we were to salvage it. All Artifacts with moving parts experience entropy. If the remaining Warsingers are between two to five thousand years old, they are almost certainly both obsolete and too damaged to be used.”

  “That depends on who made it and how well it was made. For example, Exhibit A.” I removed the Gauntlet of the Arch-Smith and the Hammer from my Inventory, and leaned over to hand them to Rin. “We didn’t take much from the tomb before resealing it, but we grabbed these. That glove is two thousand years old, and it works perfectly at four percent durability.”

  Rin turned the gauntlet over in her hands, lips parted. “Oh look at this… the Gauntlet of the Arch-Smith, mrr mrr mrr… Oh my god. This is a legendary relic!?”

  “Yeah. The hammer is pretty good, too.”

  “Yes, it is, but this thing has TWENTY mana slots?! I can’t use it for nineteen more levels, but…” Rin’s eyes widened to the size of saucers as she eagerly slid it on. She, Istvan, and Ebisa all jumped as the hexagonal plates unlocked and clacked their way into place along her arm. Suri’s eyebrows shot up, and Karalti stopped chewing for a moment. “Wow! Hector, this thing is amazing! Look at that craftsmanship! It’s so simple, but to execute this so it can lock into place and form to someone’s limb while keeping that kind of mana capacity and flexibility and…”

  “And it’s made of pure aurum.” Ebisa caught her by the wrist and pulled her arm over, scrutinizing it. When she found the button, she pushed it, and we all watched as it folded back down. “There might only be four or five aurum artifacts like this in the world, Hector.”

  “Aurum being…?” Istvan motioned to the glove.

  “Aurum is an extremely durable, incorruptible non-ferrous arcane superalloy with exceptionally low ductility and exceptionally high hardness,” Rin replied absent-mindedly. Her voice was quick, fussy and flat now, and she didn’t look up at Istvan as she studied the surface of it. “Its mana toxicity rating is fifteen-point-two, it has to be smelted at two-thousand-nine-hundred-and-four-degrees kelvin in a tungsten crucible and can only be worked with diamond-edged tools with a minimum enchantment of plus five...”

  “So it’s very hard and very strong and magical enough that no normal human being wants anything to do with it.” Istvan watched on with amusement as Rin took out a small screwdriver from somewhere, and began to poke and pry at the gauntlet.

  Rin nodded. “Yes, and the Warsinger painting Hector saw showed a gold-colored Warsinger, right? If the Warsingers were made of aurum, or even lambidium…?”

  “Either metal would preserve for that length of time, yes, but that doesn’t mean all the Warsinger’s components would be made of superalloys capable of weathering five thousand years of attrition,” Ebisa rasped. “If so, aurum is more likely. I don’t know if there’s enough lambidium in the world to produce even one machine the size and complexity of the one we recovered.”

  “Could it be rare because our ancestors dug it all up to make a bunch of Warsingers, maybe?” Suri drawled.

  Istvan snerked.

  “I need to take this to my workshop like, right away. Oh my god.” Rin flexed her hand and arm with a happy sound, bouncing on her seat. “It feels so natural! Like it’s part of my arm!”

  Istvan’s expression turned wistful. “If only Vash could get an arm like that.”

  Rin flushed blue, and shoved her hands into her lap with a rueful grimace. “Oh… sorry… I didn’t mean to flash it around like that�
��”

  “No, no, journeywoman. I wasn’t criticizing you.” Istvan chuckled, and waved a hand. “Just the idle musings of a man who frets too much. You lose one partner, you worry about them all.”

  “You… lost your partner?” Rin’s brows furrowed. “Like… your…?”

  “Yes. My wife, my daughter, and our household all died when this city was taken by the Demon, along with many other people and creatures I cared about.” Istvan’s humor faded, and he turned his eyes up to the faded green banners that fluttered from the ceiling. “But that was another life. We need to focus on what we are here for: planning our next steps on the path to finding this Warsinger.”

  “Unfortunately, yes.” Suri pulled the big leather-bound book I’d borrowed for her and thumped it down on the table. “So, we’ve basically got a lead on one Warsinger from the tomb Hector and Karalti found, and we’ve got another from that book you gave me. It has a chapter on Sachara, so good find on that one.”

  “Do tell.” I batted my eyelashes at her.

  Suri tapped the cover. “Not gonna lie: this Meewfolk nerd is a pretty fuckin’ dull read, but he knows his shit. According to him, Sachara was born in Dakhdir as a gladiatorial slave. Khors came to her in a dream, turned her Starborn, and told her that her destiny was to emancipate the humans, Mercurions, Lys, Dragons, and Meewfolk from the Aesari. Well, somehow she broke her chains and went and fuckin’ did it over the course of about fifty years. It says that Khors gifted Sachara five kinds of knowledge: The Knowledge of Kings, the Talent of the Smith, and the Sciences of the Magic, War, and Medicine. She found the Spear of Nine Spheres in Napath and went north with it to reforge it in a volcanic forge temple to Khors, location unknown. However, after some un-specified adventures where she liberated a bunch of Mercurions, it says she returned to Dakhdir as a giantess who led a massive army of Meewfolk, dragons, and humans against the Aesari in the Shalid. They won, eventually, but the Aesari nearly destroyed the Caul with their magic. The book doesn’t name a Triad: it just says ‘at the end of the greatest war known to this world, one Starborn from every race gathered at the tomb of Khors to calm the souls within the Caul and restore it to balance, and thus gave up their immortality’.”