-Report to his majesty, strange invaders
My hand shakes on the table, knuckles curled tight into a fist. I hammer down again, making instruments jump. “Do you think that I will just sit here and stomach insults?” Dust settles back over my fist as I stare across the table.
“Ha,” Erika barks. “Fair price is insulting to you?” Erika waves a bit of the dust out of her face. Over the past few days, with my own experiments, I have discovered that the dust lazing about her shop does not come from misuse or age, but the process of transferring mana from one medium to another. Every enchanter’s shop is lousy with it apparently. There were even a number of refrains about it, “never trust a clean enchanter.”
“Fair.” I hold up a rod of copper, waving it beneath her nose. “Just yesterday I infused this with sixteen and a half thaums of rock affixed mana. You ask me to swallow twenty crowns for that? You might be used to swallowing such things, but I most certainly am not.”
“Twenty crowns is generous,” she scoffs. “I like you girl, you’re perky and a tad petulant, remind me of me. But this…” she taps the medium I hold in my hand. “Sold it to you not three days ago and already you have gone and spoiled it. A novice enchanter should not attempt to push a medium so near to its mana capacity, any inefficiencies in the transfer process can cause loss. Besides, there are only sixteen thaums in here.”
Thaums are the part and parcel of the enchanter’s trade. They are the numerical value of the density of mana, and therefore, they are how an enchanter knows how much they need to pay for an item. The most expensive thing that I have purchased from Erika. Experimenting over the last few days, I have discovered that I need at least twenty thaums to imprint an affix onto my soul, an incredible amount. Of all the affixed mana I have managed to disenchant over the last three days, I have only managed that twice.
“Sixteen!” I slap the medium down on the table. “Sixteen!”
Erika leans over, grabbing a rod made of copper, connected to a larger machine of dials, valves, and coiled wire, a thin length of wire trailing from the end of the rod and back to the machine. She runs the end of her probe over the medium, checking the dials back on the thaumometer. “Sixteen.”
I have to learn over the table to see the read-out, shown by a thin black arm on one of the dials that hovers back and forth. “And a quarter.”
“A quarter is not a half,” Erika dismisses, rolling her eyes.
“It is sixteen and a half on the instrument you sold to me. Which instrument is the broken one, the one you had me pay a high price for, or the one you have in your shop to cheat customers?”
“I might not balk at much, girl, but I balk at being called a cheat. Simply because you cannot read the instrument correctly, does not mean that what I sold to you is broken or that mine here is. If you are going to complain about it so passionately, fine, twenty-two crowns, because I like you.”
“Thirty-six,” I say.
It is Erika’s turn to slap the table. A speck of dust stabs into my left eye, setting my lashes to flutter annoyingly. I try to stop myself from rubbing at it, but fail, and each rub only makes the problem worse, not better.
“Thirty-six would be actual robbery,” she sneers. “I see you for what you are, girl. Out here to rob an old lady blind because you think you can. I’m not some boy you can flash a bit of flesh at, I’m made of sterner stuff. Twenty-eight.”
I laugh, making certain that Erika can see the fakeness in my guffaw as I lean over the table and loom over her. “Bedrik said he would give me thirty-eight,” I lie. Never met the man, just read his name off his storefront. “I thought that I might come off you the first bid. There’s been a drought for good mana down here, I’ve heard. Guild enchanters eating up all the supplies.”
“Guild enchanters,” Erika spits in a tin next to her. “A bunch of assholes drunk on their asshole power.”
“You don’t need to tell me about that,” I say.
She looks me up and down, huffing. “Not like you’re so different.”
“I am not with them,” I say. I spit myself into her tin. I’ve had lots of practice at it back home.
“Maybe you aren’t, girl. Maybe you aren’t. Thirty. That’s my final offer. Go flirt your way to more if you can but do it somewhere else.”
“Thirty-four,” I counter.
She sputters, but there is a hint of a smile at the corner of her lips as she musters her anger to make some snide comment back at me. We continue on like that for some time. She has no idea just how many filled mediums I brought back with me today. The arguing over price lasts a long while, and when I reveal the dented breastplate, the armor that I found inside that cave so long ago, and begin to barter with it, it really heats up.
For the past few weeks, I have been conflicted about it. As I grow faster, the weight of it, the bulkiness of it, weighs on me more and more. It is so odd to think that something called feathersteel to be heavy, and really it isn’t, but when fractions of seconds are on the line, when frantic movement is what you use to avoid deadly attacks, even that much weight is difficult to afford. More, the several dents and repairs in the armor show both how valuable it has been to me, and how costly it is. Toward the end of the excursion on the mountain, I found myself turning to take hits on the arm rather than the armor, to avoid the time and cost it would take to repair. My body repairs itself, and has become very, very good at it.
Erika agrees with what I expected her to. The armor is inspired, the lining inside so complex in its design that it can only be the work of a solitary genius–I have spent hours retracing its intricacies into a journal. But, in the end, the technical aspects of it are just too out of date. The piece is ancient, a marvel yes, but it cannot compete with modern enchantments. In the modern era, there are fabulous pieces of flowing metal like the one that Arabella sometimes wears, armor so grand that it could protect its wearer from a mountain falling atop them. Such items are not only insanely expensive, but are kept in prohibition, the people capable of creating them watched closely. I cannot make such a piece, but I can do better than plate I believe, better for me anyway.
When I crack open the armor, revealing the lining between the two pieces, Erika’s eyes light up. She inspects the stretchy material, identifying it immediately. She traces the lines of metal running through, looks over the runes written, and puts the mess down with a care she has not shown before. In the end, she leaves the table, walking to the back of the shop, returning with a heavy wooden case she tows with shuffling steps. Inside, stand eight rows of gold crowns, arrayed neatly, their metal catching glinting light. I make her retrieve another before we settle on a price.
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Even with all of my new strength, I cannot haul all of the day’s earning away without resorting to storing them in my ring. That number, that fabulous number, ticks ever upwards as I put the new gold inside. I really should store some in my vault. The ring is good protection, but all it would take is someone sneaking up on me and stealing it away to get all of my money.
“I didn’t think both of you would walk away from that alive,” a voice, one that has thoroughly managed to sneak up on me, says just as I leave Erika’s shop.
I spin to my right, a touch of fire licking my fingers, finding a man leaning against the storefront, casual as can be. Dovik has changed since I last saw him. He is taller, his shoulders more broad, and more of a cast of strength about him. A well-kempt brown beard rings his chin, making him look five years older at least. The way that scar cutting down his face goes into the beard, leaving a thin line of skin peeking through, makes him look dangerous.
Dovik Willian
Immortal Conflux(Magic Defense Specialist)
He looks me up and down, his eyes focusing on mine. “I’m wondering if you can help me find a girl. She’s rural, stringy orange hair, face that makes her look younger than she is, and the worst temper I’ve ever seen on a woman. She has these eyes though, makes a man’s blood run cold when she looks at them.”
“You took my advice about the beard,” I say.
“I don’t recall any advice about my beard,” Dovik says, stroking the thin svelte strands.
“I remember thinking something about it at least. Makes you look like a man.”
“As opposed to…”
“Do you really want me to answer that?” I ask. Damn him, the man’s smile is infectious.
“I am tempted to hear what insult you might come up with,” he says. “How are you doing, farm girl? It’s been a while.”
I throw my arms around him, pulling him into a hug. I hadn’t realized until just now how much I’ve missed him over the last few months. Thinking back on it, it feels like I barely know him. He squeezes me back, with arms as strong as any man’s I’ve known.
“Why didn’t you come find me when you got back?” Dovik asks after stepping back and working for a moment to find a position leaning against the stones of Erika’s store that was both nonchalant and adequately attentive. “I had to hear from Jor, who heard from Jess, that you were back.”
“I’ve been busy,” I say.
He looks back at the store-front, trying and failing to peer inside through a dusty window. “Picking up a new trade? Don’t tell me that you’ve given up on the third rank already. Everyone talks it up, but most of my family manage to make it, or they die trying. You are quite good at not dying, so I think you have a real chance.”
“You reaching it is a foregone conclusion, right.”
“Naturally.”
“I’m not giving up,” I say. “I am simply exploring a new avenue for advancement. Not all of us have the resources that you do.”
He runs a finger down the side of a pot filled with dirt and dead purple flowers, holding up the gray dust on the end of his finger for me to see. “So, you are going to make your equipment yourself then?”
“Perhaps I will. Doubt me?”
“After what I have seen you do, Charlene, there’s no chance of that happening. So, are you planning to go to an academy? I’m sure you can afford to get into one now, and if you ask the guild for a recommendation, they wouldn’t hesitate to write you one.”
“I’ve thought about that,” I say, starting to walk, forcing him off his perch against the wall to follow after me. “Schooling would take too long, and it would take too much of my time. I have only two and a half years left to reach rank three. If what I have heard about it is true, that is no time to spare.”
“So, you are still going through with it?” he asks. “Preparing for the trial?”
“What do you know about the trial?”
He laughs. “About as much as I know about anything. This one though, this one is going to be something big. All of the guilds are coming together for it, and I’m not sure that anyone outside the guildmaster and a few others know the details. I might not be making it sound significant enough, but I hope you understand.”
“You didn’t know much about the Trial of Rising Tide either, why is this so different?”
“Because when I asked my father about the Trial of Rising Tide, he laughed it off, told me to concentrate on bettering myself and preparing. When I asked him about this, he tried to distract me, and then when I asked again, he told me to stop asking.”
“And that is important,” I say.
“That is the only time he has ever told me to stop asking questions,” Dovik says. “So, yes. It is important I think.”
We find our way off the side-street and onto the main thoroughfare for the platform. The street isn’t long in and of itself, but the walk is crowded with people. In the mid-afternoon rush, traffic going both ways is a press. Reluctantly, I stop at the corner, sticking to the vacant side street to watch the flood of people pass us by.
“You will be there,” I say.
“Of course I will. I’ve been working on convincing Jor, but he is not so pleased with the guild at the moment. He thinks that if he breaks the contract, his father will be able to intercede for him. Dare say, he is probably right.”
“He wants to reach the third rank,” I say. “He will come around.”
“I’m certain that he will, especially after I confirm that you are planning to join.”
“Planning,” I say. “But how likely is it for me to make it in time, really?”
“It would be more likely if we worked together. Come join my team, I’m assembling one.”
“What an honor.” I give him my best dead-panned glare, and judging by his growing smile, he heard my sarcasm loud and clear. “A chance to join the Scion of Willian’s team, the one with the handsome and dashing Gallant among its ranks, how could I turn that down?”
“Don’t call me that,” Dovik says, stifling a laugh. “When beautiful young women start attaching monikers to you, they have a way of sticking. Go ask Gallant about it.”
“I will when I see him.” Each time I look at the press of people in front of me, seeing a momentary gap, someone else fills it before I can. I am well aware that if I really need to, I could shove these people out of my way, but that feels like a bit too much. They all seem to be moving together in some strange, hurried walk native to city people; I’ve not picked up its nuances yet.
“Want to go find some lunch?” Dovik asks, watching my feet as I step forward, back, then forward again. “There is a great little cafe just two streets upward, right at the part of the city where the upper and middle thirds meet. You’d love it, where fantastic food meets cheap prices.”
“I have more shopping I need to do today.”
“Makes sense.” He holds his hands up when I turn a glare on him. “You just seem like the shopping type is all.”
“I’ll never make it anywhere like this.” My hands itch to conjure up some flame, to shove my way through the press, but that is probably a bad instinct.
“Don’t you have a ship now?” he asks. “Just fly over it.”
“It is parked all the way up at the docks. How am I supposed to use it here?”
He shrugs. “Just park it on a roof. That is what everyone else does.”
The thought of parking my incredibly heavy ship on some poor woman’s roof is horrifying. What if the ship falls in and crushes someone? What if it gets scratched?
“I’m sure guild personnel don’t have to deal with this.”
“No, they just fly over,” Dovik agrees. “Dealing with traffic is up to us little people.”
I turn back to him at that, thinking about it. “The guild trains people to fly when they reach the third rank, right? That is when people typically learn how to do that.”
“Sure. There is a nice park that is commonly used attached to the guild commons.”
“Show me,” I say, grabbing his arm.
He looks down at my hand, arching an eyebrow. “What happened to shopping?”
“That doesn’t have to happen right now.”
He smiles. “Sure, I can show you, but only if you allow me to buy you a meal.”
“Make it an expensive meal, and you have yourself a deal.”
Today, I am going to learn how to fly.
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