RavensDagger

  Chapter Forty - A Walk

  55th Day of Spring - Year 1758 of the Golden EraShorefarm, Yellowfield, Draya Calyrex

  He would never let his walking partner know it, but he was growing quite tired as he walked. Months held up onboard a ship, and prior years lingering within academic halls, grand libraries, and tiny boratories had never afforded him time to truly exercise. He mostly remained thin on account of forgotten meals rather than because of any stringent diet.

  Next to him, Jorvin was walking in his knightly armour without the need to ever breathe harder, even after spending time onboard a ship with minimal exercise.

  "I wish we didn't have to wear these things," Jorvin said. It was his first compint since they'd left the shoreside vilge. His hand had reached up to touch the mask covering his face.

  It was identical to the one Maldrak himself wore. A thick pad of hardy cotton over the nose and mouth, with a leather sheet over it all. The mask was pinched in the middle, and on Jorvin it looked like his lower face was taken over by a curved, bck beak. Maldrak imagined he looked much the same.

  "It's for our own good," he said, aware of the way the mask changed the depth of his voice. It also made breathing ever so slightly harder, his own breath returning as warm and suffocating.

  It was better than the alternative.

  So far, his observations of Draya Calyrex had been somewhat sparse, and done through the eyes of proxies and puppets. Now he was seeing it firsthand. More than once, he had stalled Jorvin's advance and forced the man to make a slight detour to explore something of interest.

  In the first hour of their travel, they came upon the body of a fox.

  The once-majestic creature was ying on the side of the roadway, stomach eviscerated, eyes gouged, and limbs already stiff with rigor mortis. Maldrak had knelt next to the fox and turned the corpse over with the end of his cane. The animal had scales poking through its skin, a superficial detail that the puppets had mentioned seeing, but more importantly, the fox's insides had changed as well.

  His dissection was rapid and unprofessional by any standard, but it was clear that the internals of the animal had mutated far more than its externals.

  Loss of fur was a small consequence compared to what had happened to the animal's stomach, which had grown and bloated to a disproportionate size. Its heart had gained toughened ligaments around it, and the fox's digestive system seemed to have necrotized in a way that he suspected meant that it was rotting before it had even died.

  He had a theory. He wasn't certain that he wanted to voice it yet.

  In any case, the wearing of masks was the right choice. The smaller their contact with the continent the better. There were spells to flush the impact of unwanted essences away--spells he intended to cast on himself and the important members of his crew on a weekly basis--but there was no point in taking needless risks.

  Later on during their trek, he encountered some rge squirrels. These had grown to the size of small dogs, and rather than skitter away in cowardice, had run out to assault them.

  Jorvin had cut through them before they were even within five paces of him, but their aggression was noteworthy still.

  The road to the mage's tower wasn't too long. The puppets had likely gotten somewhat lost on the way. It was connected to Shorefarm by a narrow road that forked off the main road between the town and its shoreline vilge, a road they found themselves on now, just two hours after dawn and their departure from the Gentle Tidings.

  "Bit of a scruffy-looking tower," Jorvin said as they came upon it.

  "The towers near the rger cities of Draya Calyrex can house hundreds," he said. "But here? This is perhaps one of the least inhabited yet still habitable regions of the continent."

  "Strange, that," Jorvin said.

  "No, not truly. There were several dozen small towns across this region at one time. That was perhaps a century ago. They were razed when a retaliatory force came from across the ocean to seek revenge upon Draya Calyrex. They were routed, of course, but they still succeeded in depoputing this area."

  "And it was never returned to its former state?" Jorvin asked.

  "It was in the process of doing so," Maldrak replied. "You must understand, the lords of Draya Calyrex, human and dragon, work on a scale that those not of this nd may find difficult to grasp. The human lords live long, hardy lives. The dragons... rarely pass on. To them, a century is a notable period the way a decade might be to us."

  Maldrak found that Jorvin was correct, however. The tower was a little scruffy. It wasn't as tall as some, and while the dark stones it was made of gave it a certain imposing air, it was still a rather small structure.

  Nonetheless, he could feel the magic wafting off the tower, like heat pouring off a kettle freshly removed from the fire.

  The scent of it was rather neutral at the moment. As far as such things went, at least. He sensed that the tower was primed to act, and yet was mostly idle. What spellwork he could sense was all aimed at freshening the air and putting pressure on a certain band of magic.

  It was tuned to push away draconic essence. He could feel a slight tingle run through him as he crossed an invisible barrier. With the precautions he'd taken, and the short amount of time spent on the continent, the tingle was merely uncomfortable. For a creature seeped in that same magic, the push here would be debilitating.

  "That's unpleasant," Jorvin said.

  "Perhaps, but it's also..." He paused as he tugged his mask down, then removed it entirely. "A good sign for the intelligence of the tower's occupants. You can remove the mask, if you wish. We are safe here."

  "Safe, or safe?" Jorvin asked.

  Maldrak considered if for only a moment. "The former," he said.

  Jorvin nodded. His free hand found its way onto his sword's pommel.

  Maldrak stepped forwards and towards the gated fence surrounding the tower. Rather than knock, he sent forth a small but magically 'loud' spell. A polite way for a mage to greet another without disturbing them directly.

  It wasn't long before the tower's door opened and a young man came stumbling out. The apprentice, Maldrak guessed.

  "Ah, hello," the young man said. "One moment, let me get that open for you. You must be Magus Maldrak. I'm Magus Discipulus Crthorn, a pleasure, sir."

  "Greetings, Magus Discipulus," Maldrak said. "It's a pleasure indeed. Is your master in?"

  "Master Magus Beornhelm is in, yes. He's awaiting your attention in the main study. Shall I, ah, accompany you?"

  Maldrak gestured with the hand holding his cane, and the young man turned sharply and started to lead the way in.

  He gnced around the tower as they entered it. The yout wasn't too dissimir to what he expected, though Beornhelm had obviously made the space his own. The spillover of books and workstations was rather typical for a mage's tower. It was a decent way to dispy the academic work that a magus was toiling over, as it happened.

  In this case, Beornhelm the Reclusive seemed to be hard at work collecting small woodnd creatures and pinning their bodies onto wooden pnks.

  The man himself stood at the far end of the room, unsurprisingly right under the main chamber of the tower where its curved stairs rose up and around him. That would be, in most cases, the focal point of whatever magical artifice the tower was built around, and a good pce for a defending magus to stand if things came to blows.

  "Magus Montgomery Maldrak in the flesh," Beornhelm said. "A name I never thought I'd see beyond the signature at the bottom of a thesis."

  "Ah, so you've read my work," Maldrak said.

  "And I even agree with some of it, which is why I'm giving you the time of day. I would have imagined you too busy. Are you not on the cusp of being an arch-magus?"

  "When the world ends, it behooves one, no matter their academic inclination, to perhaps set the experimental work down and focus instead on the practical," Maldrak replied.

  "Hmpf. I saw some of your practical work. Those puppets were impressive indeed. Perhaps I ought to re-read some of your articles."

  "Or you could ask me directly," Maldrak said. He settled his cane down before him, then pced both hands atop the head. "Magus Beornhelm, I require your assistance and your tower, and for one or both, I am willing to pay quite the sum."

  The magus eyed him for a long moment, then he turned to face his apprentice. "Go boil some water, boy. We're going to need strong tea for this."

  ***