BECMI Chapter 84 – New Roads Forward

“Mmm. If I may?” I held up my hand, and swirls of skulls trailing crimson petals and black vapors billowed up around me suddenly, laughing softly as they converged into a sphere of soft light in my hand. Black and red shadows swirled inside a shell of arcane blue fire and rumbling, subdued stars flaring in the night within. I held it up for him to look at. “A simple Bloodline test.”

“Bloodline? ” King Antius exclaimed, somewhat shocked.

“All arcane magic comes from Sorcery. Every Wizard has a Bloodline, they simply use alternate means to wield the magic it grants them.” He blinked at me in shock. “Is this some sort of prejudicial superstition on your part? I would expect a true Wizard to be better informed. Without Sorcery, there are no Wizards.”

“I, but…” he trailed off, just watching my arched eyebrow and ruby eyes staring at him in reproof. “That… is news to me, Lady Edge,” he admitted carefully.

“Mmm. I take it this distrust of Sorcerers is something inherited from Iberon? Their distrust and persecution of such is remembered even in my time.” I held the sphere out to him. “Take it. It does not bite.”

A little reluctantly and definitely cautiously, he carefully lifted it out of my hand.

The instant it left my grasp, all the color fled it, and what was left was just vague sparkles inside an almost perfectly transparent globe.

He valiantly did not frown. “There, you see? I have nothing of magic within me.”

“Oh, an expert on Bloodlines are you now, Your Majesty? Given your previous words, I thought you were rather ignorant on the subject. I imagine the secret tomes you must have read must have been quite well-hidden in the royal library.”

He flushed brightly, caught out, but could not help waving the Testing Sphere at me. “But there is nothing here to see, Lady Edge!” he protested strongly.

“Is there not?” I blinked slowly at the Sphere, then at him. “I must not know what I am seeing, then.”

Ah, the look on his face, of surprise, a hope he dared not fan, of dreams long crushed and buried under the cunning of a ruler doing the best for his people with mundane means.

“What, what do you see, then?” he asked hesitantly, staring at the almost-invisible orb of magic in his grasp.

He actually gawked at me, then the Sphere in his hand, then back at me. “I, I am afraid I have never heard of such a thing, Lady Edge…”

“An Artificer wields the core of magic, mana without bias or affiliation, considered by some to be the essence of, the building block of magic, from which all other magic stems. It is not wielded by deliverance of spells, however. It is wielded through items. Artificers are the greatest makers and users of tools among the magical Traditions.

“You, Your Majesty, are a natural user of magical Tools. You have never tested positive for magic because Artificers do not use spells. They use Infusions. Trying to test for your magic by spellcasting would be like trying to test for skill with a sword by giving a man a bow and telling him to make his own arrows, that way you’d find what kind of swordsman he was!”

He grimaced at the example. “Is this an orthodox Tradition?” he demanded to know. “If it is not embraced by the Church, I, I cannot pursue this…”

“The dwarves have been using Artifice magic for at least several centuries. Has the Church deemed their magic and the weapons and armor they make heretical?” I asked archly, undeterred by his fears.

His eyes lit up. “This is how dwarves who cannot Cast make magical Arms and Armor…” he breathed, staring at the unseen magic.

“So, you are aware of the dwarven mages. I understand they shroud them in a lot of secrecy. So they will not be targeted by their enemies, I imagine?” I inquired evenly, clearly already knowing the fact.

“The Regent of the Halls is a good friend of mine, and we spoke of things between us as a Dwarf-Friend that would not normally be spoken of to outsiders,” King Antius confirmed.

“Any dwarf of sufficient intellectual capability is capable of following the path of an Artificer, but it takes discipline and skill to do so, and wielding a magic that many do not feel comfortable with. Like humans, many simply prefer the axe and the hammer to any form of magic, and shie away from anything less than steel in the hand and stone underfoot.” I sniffed only a little. “In truth, they are far more gifted at Artifice and technology than any other form of knowledge, so it is not surprising.”

“That is… surprising news. The dwarven thanes are proving very resistant to the discoveries and knowledge coming out of the university at Darkmoor, as if the idea that if it isn’t invented by dwarves means it isn’t worthy of being learned…”

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“It is change, and mature dwarves deal with change no better than older humans do. The speed with which the world can change frightens and bewilders them after sitting for so many long years at the top of the world in the skills they know and have mastered. The speed with which humans learn, advance, and make war makes them deeply uneasy, especially when they manage to pass their knowledge on to their young, and instead of being satisfied with the learning of their elders, humans pursue ever more, more, more, looking to exceed those who came before.

“It is easiest to see in how fast humans master magic and diversify it in ways such as elves and dwarves never did, but technology is much the same. In the eyes of dwarves and elves, humans have done in mere centuries what it took them millennia to achieve, and the ceilings they have long labored under mean nothing to humanity.

“The dwarves are living in fear of the changes and improvements in basic sciences and engineering outgrowing their own achievements. Likewise, the elves see the rapid, unnatural rise in magical ability and knowledge eclipsing and surpassing their own, combined with a rapid improvement in technology, and realize they are being left behind as they refuse to change and advance with the times.

“Evolution is a cruel mistress, and it does not care that you want things to stay the same. Adapt or die, and they don’t want to adapt.”

“You do not speak like any elf I know of,” the king admitted politely. “Such insight into the differences of our species and acceptance of them is very unusual…”

“I live in a far more lively and dangerous world than the average elf and dwarf does. I resigned myself to adapting to it, or dying. Consider it an aspect of my not wanting to die,” I responded aloofly.

“Convincing the elves and dwarves to work with us has been difficult for their Elder and Regent, it is very true,” he sighed. “And I’ve not heard from Himmelstern Karrackheim in months, I don’t know what is going on there…”

Alarm bells went off silently in my head. “The Regent of the Dwarven Halls is missing?” I asked carefully.

He blinked at me. “No? He has sent his second to meetings of the Regency Council…”

“To which he used to attend himself?” I asked sharply. “To meet with his good Dwarf-Friends?”

The king was tongue-tied for a moment, looking at me as he carefully reviewed everything about the dwarves he’d heard recently. “They’ve not said anything of troubles at home or with the Regent…” he finally trailed off, his brow furrowing in suspicion.

“And I’m sure his second claims to speak for him, and yet nothing is happening?” I inquired further.

“The Thanes of the Halls have been acting up more than normal…” he repeated what he’d been told, his eyes flickering.

“Trust, but verify. Do you have intelligence assets in the dwarven lands?” I asked coldly.

“I… no. They are our allies, and we’ve always had a very good relationship,” King Antius shook his head slowly.

“Your nations have had a good relationship, or your rulers have had a good relationship? As in, if one of you were to fall by the wayside, that relationship would continue unabated?”

The King hesitated under the intensity of my gaze. “Regent Himmelstern’s influence among the Halls is unmatched, none of the Thanes will defy his will. Reluctance on the part of the Thanes is… inappropriate, I would say. It could mean many things…”

“Dwarves place great stock on personal honor. If something happened to the Regent that was, ah, dishonorable, they would go to great lengths to hide it from outsiders, even from Dwarf-Friends. If he was merely missing, or dead, a true Dwarf-Friend could be trusted with that knowledge, as you might be willing to help recover him, with clerical magic they don’t have, if nothing else.

“But if dishonor is involved, they will be as tight-lipped as their forges, and naturally the Thanes are not beholden to the Regent’s second.”

“It would explain a great deal of their recent reticence,” the king admitted reluctantly. “And our relationship hinged on Himmelstern more than I would like to admit, it seems...”

“I will be escorting the dwarves of my Company to the Mountain Halls to learn the basics of their spellcasting, as the elves also wish to visit the Redwood near to Darkmoor City. Perhaps I can investigate more deeply. Do you have anything given to you personally forged by the Regent’s own hands?”

His dark eyes flashed. “My knife.” He unclipped it from his belt and offered it to me. “I carry it always in recognition of our bond.”

I accepted it, feeling the tingle of magic in the metal, cast in the solid, heavy style of dwarven magic. A +III Dagger, a very useful thing to have as a back-up Weapon. “A smith’s link to his craftings is akin to a parent’s bond to their children, or even stronger. I will be able to track him with this… or at the very least, assure you as to where he is not.”

His expression cleared up quickly at my reassuring words. “You do not fail to surprise ever more, Lady Edge,” he bobbed his head to me, looking about to assess the Island of the Frog around us. “When can you start on this next mission?”

“My Company will need a couple of days to clear out as many of the mutant frogs as possible, and I will raise an Obelisk, in addition to putting up new walls and roads across the island. I will begin such things soon enough, and when we are finished putting up the , we can return to Darkmoor City and I will send off my people.”

King Antius could not help smiling as he pictured what might be transforming this swamp city so quickly that his nation’s enemies simply would not be able to react in time to what this place was going to become.

They would certainly be making efforts to capture it, but that would not go as smoothly as they might want, either!

“There is also the matters of our prisoners,” he finally spoke up again.

“I believe we might be able to recruit one of the aliens as an instructor at the University. I will handle her interrogation and integration. Are you going to need my help with any of the slavers?” I asked archly.

“They are only alive because we might be able to trade them for some of our people who have been enslaved,” he admitted candidly. “Otherwise, we would have put them to the sword and fed them to the alligators before the others, the white fires of vivus notwithstanding.”

“It is generally not a good idea to give wildlife tastes of the flesh of your own species, but I can appreciate the sentiment…”