BOOK 12: CHAPTER 16: AN UNLIKELY TUTOR

16 – An Unlikely Tutor

Victor looked at Cora, saw her standing back at the junction where he’d left her. She held her rapier before her in a guard position, and a pool of blood-attuned Energy surrounded her. He knew it was a defensive spell; anything that approached her would be ensnared by it. He nodded to her, and she nodded back, then Victor turned to regard the door his coyotes had led him to.

They were high in the citadel, on a level Victor had never explored during his previous stay back when he’d first come to Coloss. It seemed to him that it was a level reserved for the Warlord and perhaps his closest confidants. The artwork and furnishings were exquisitely crafted, the marble was of a higher grade, and the magical Energy lamps were encased in precious metals and shone through polished crystals.

The door before him was made of dark, polished wood that gleamed in the light, its intricate grain and knots beautifully preserved by the craftsperson who’d made it. They were large, but not giant-sized, so it tracked, in Victor’s opinion, that they’d open onto a space reserved for the Warlord. “What’s the story, hermano?” Victor asked, moving to stand beside his coyote, patting his shoulder.

The totem whined, looking from the door to him, once again silently conveying what it had found: something that felt like the lock on the cultivation chamber, and something dangerous. Victor snapped his fingers and pointed back toward the junction. “Okay, you go with your brothers and protect Cora.”

The coyote turned and padded off, its nails clicking on the marble. Victor could feel the others nearby, silently patrolling the nearby corridors, ensuring nothing snuck up on them. Victor didn’t think anything would, but he hadn’t banked on whatever was waiting behind the door, either, so he figured he ought to be careful. As the coyote’s steps receded, Victor reduced his size enough that he’d be able to fit through the door, just in case he had to move quickly. That done, he tentatively grasped the platinum latch and turned it.

To his surprise, it twisted easily, and he heard the mechanism click as the heavy door silently swung inwards. Victor stopped it with just a gap of a few inches between it and the jamb, then he peered through. What met his eye was a well-lit workspace. A long table, littered with books and large sheets of parchment paper, filled the immediate area before the door, and beyond it, a hall stretched for hundreds of feet, illuminated by high skylights. That space was lined with shelves and racks, filled with all manner of things, from glass bottles to suits of armor.

“Chingado,” Victor hissed, pushing the door wide. He didn’t step through immediately; rather, he continued his careful scrutiny, hands loose, ready to summon Lifedrinker. Beyond the table, near the far end of the vast hall, was an elevated dais, and Victor could see a ritual circle inlaid in the marble floor of it. He wondered what sorts of spells the Warlord worked on in there. Was that where he and his Artificer, Fough, had done their rituals to steal other people’s bloodlines and affinities?

Victor could feel something dangerous—he couldn’t put his finger on what it was, but it felt almost like a predator or killer. It felt hungry and angry, full of murderous intent. He knew it was what had alerted his coyote, but he couldn’t see it—not yet. The feeling was enough for him to summon Lifedrinker, though, and she came into his hands perfectly sized for him. He gripped her haft, her great axe blade held high near his right shoulder, and her voice came to him as a conspiratorial whisper, “Do we stalk a foe, War-heart?”

“Something’s lurking in there, beautiful.” Before stepping forward, Victor gathered his Energy, pulling some strands from his hope-attuned Core and creating a thick thread of inspiration. Then, he cast Core Domain and watched as the world transformed around him. The ambient light brightened, and the dark marble floors gave way to crystalline gravel, while furniture and walls morphed into crystal trees and branches. Everything was infused with the white-gold light of inspiration, and perfect clarity came to Victor’s mind as he looked around.

Immediately, Victor became aware of a baleful red Energy hanging over the doorway. Now that the wall had crystallized, he could look up and see that a red gemstone was suspended on the inside of the room, just over the doorframe. It pointed down with a dangerous red gleam, and he knew that if he were to step through that portal, it would unleash a massive cascade of destructive Energy. He wondered if it was enough to kill him—possibly not, but it would certainly hurt, and it was likely to annihilate the nearby surroundings.

It surprised him to think the malevolent presence he’d sensed might be an inanimate object—a trap meant to destroy interlopers. Inspired by his domain, he traced the signature of the almost radioactive Energy in the gemstone, following the web-like strands to where they wrapped around the door’s casing, patiently probing for signs of intrusion. “Can I just unhook those?”

He opened his inner eye, scanning the gemstone as he leaned forward, but hastily pulled back when he felt its violent aura begin to thrum. “How…” he muttered, very delicately inching his head forward again so he could turn an eye toward the inner frame of the door. In his domain, the wood had become nearly transparent, and its now-crystalline surface shone with inspiration. As he ever-so-carefully inched closer, he saw what he was looking for: delicately scrawled, intricate runes.

His years of studying magical texts and languages paid off immediately. He recognized the runes for what they were: triggers. They would sense the passage of anyone other than the Warlord and unleash the horrible, destructive forces bound into that pulsing red gem. “Sorry, beautiful, this isn’t the kind of fight you’re suited for.”

“Then please find us a worthy foe soon!” Lifedrinker cried, pulsing with affection as Victor sent her back into his spirit space. Smiling at her constant eagerness, he summoned one of his inscribing tools, one that had been lying on his work table beside the many elder magic patterns he’d been toiling at over the years. It was a sturdy, wonderful little tool, shaped like a pen, but with an Energy-driven tip that could scrape, engrave, smooth, or cut just about any material so long as Victor fed it enough Energy.

Before he did anything else, Victor turned and called out to Cora, “Back up further—all the way to the stairs!”

“What? Why?”

“Because I might make a mistake!” Victor laughed, shaking his head as he turned back to the doorway. Another idea came to him as he contemplated the trigger runes. He wondered if he could possibly grasp the gemstone and send it into a dimensional container before it detonated. Would that work? If it fired off inside the container, destroying the Energy bonds that held its dimensional space together, would it simply fall apart, or would it implode and possibly result in a calamity? He supposed it depended on how badly and rapidly it came apart.

He dismissed the idea, but not because of that concern. The thing was, he didn’t know for sure he could even get his hand on the gemstone before it detonated. Instead, he began the painstaking process of inching his eyeball close to the runes so he could read them all, and then he began altering them, one by one.

The easiest alteration he could make was to add himself to the trigger’s “owner” registry. To do that, he had to add a pair of notches connecting each rune to a new one, and then infuse it with a tiny bit of his Energy, creating a signature of sorts. When he was done, the sense of danger in his gut began to recede, and when he looked at the destructive gemstone, it didn’t seem to glow with the same baleful Energy as before. Nodding, convinced he’d made it safe—for himself, at least—he stepped through the doorway.

A warm tingle ran down his spine, but nothing exploded. Victor turned and peered up at the trap. The gemstone was mounted in a platinum socket. Now that he could see the interior side of the door frame, he could see tiny threads of platinum running from the sconce-like socket to each of the runes he’d altered. He wasn’t sure he’d have realized it without standing inside his inspiration domain, but it was clear to him that the trigger runes were tied to the sconce, and it, in turn, was tied to the gemstone. Chuckling, he reached up, gingerly grabbed the sides of the fist-sized stone, and pulled it out of the socket.

Having attuned himself to the triggers, nothing bad happened. The stone came free, and the trap was fully disarmed. Victor lifted his fingers to his lips and blew a shrill whistle. A few seconds later, he saw Cora come running, face flushed, eyes wide, perhaps worried that he was in some sort of distress. His coyotes flanked her, but they weren’t concerned; they could sense Victor’s good mood.

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When Cora stopped at the junction, he waved her forward. “It’s fine!” and she started toward him. Victor cut the ties of Energy that kept his domain active, and the sparkling, crystalline wonder faded from the world.

“Why did you cast your domain spell?” Cora asked as she approached, still holding her rapier ready and looking about warily.

“I wanted to make sure I didn’t miss anything. Inside my domain, especially inspiration-attuned, I’m far more aware of everything around me.” He shifted his attention to his coyotes, then flicked his fingers toward the massive workshop and storage room, whistling sharply. “Check it out, hermanos.”

As the coyotes ran through the doorway, brushing against his legs as they went, he turned back to Cora, rubbing his chin. “There was a trap on the door. I think it was a nasty one.”

“That’s why I had to go all the way to the stairwell? It was that bad?”

Victor shrugged, summoning the gemstone from his spirit space. “See for yourself.” He tossed it to her, and she gasped, frantically grabbing for it as it tumbled through the air toward her.

“Victor!”

He snorted, shaking his head. “It’s not going to blow up unless it’s triggered. I’m not a maniac!”

Cora held the gemstone—much larger looking in her hands than his—and stared at it, her face growing more and more pale by the second. “It’s so dense. There’s more Energy in here than in my entire Core!”

Victor nodded. “Yeah, and it’s not pleasant Energy—something really destructive, but I haven’t been able to put my finger on it.”

“Can I study it?”

He shrugged. “Put it in the good storage ring I gave you. I think it would degrade a common one.”

“Yes, sir, and thank—”

“And be careful with it!”

“I will! I swear!”

Victor stared at her for a couple of seconds, then turned to examine the Warlord’s inner sanctum. It wasn’t his bedroom; they’d passed by his quarters on the way to this room. They’d been nicely appointed, but fairly mundane. This space was clearly where the Warlord spent most of his free time—the place where he did research and kept his most prized possessions. Victor was guessing at that latter part, but he felt he was right. Energy was thick in the air; there were potent things in that room.

Cora came to stand beside him, and they watched as his coyotes sniffed every corner, every nook and cranny, and when they didn’t find anything that alarmed them, Victor sent them back to the spirit plane. “Should be safe to look around. The key to the cultivation chamber will be in one of those drawers in the back left-hand corner beside the ritual dais. My coyotes sniffed it in there.”

“Shall I look for it?”

“Sure, and look around for shards of the Ancestor Stone. They’ll resemble irregular crystals, and they might be just about any color. Ardek thinks the Warlord had five of them.” Victor gestured to the nearby table covered with books and elaborate, hand-drawn charts and notes. “I want to examine these, but then I’ll help you look around.”

Cora turned and, visibly excited, hurried past the long table toward the far half of the room, her head turning left and right as the many shelves and cases vied for her attention. Victor walked over to the enormous table, his eyes drawn to the poster-sized charts. Something about the designs he’d glimpsed had immediately captured his attention. When he looked at the topmost one on the central stack, he began to understand why.

The Warlord—Victor never thought of the man as Thoargh—had sketched out a pattern, woven intricately in three dimensions, almost like an elder magic design. It was very obviously not a spell, however. Even so, Victor counted nineteen differently colored and shaded lines originating from a single source, which were then separated, woven into pairs or clusters of three and four, and stretched outward into multiple patterns that eventually found their way to each other, combining into one intricate, convoluted schema.

It reminded Victor of the pattern he’d had in his framework before he’d torn it apart. “I wonder—” he started to mutter, but then Cora cried out and he looked toward the excited sound.

“Weapons!” she yelled, looking his way as she pointed to a large display case.

Victor nodded, holding up a thumb. “Keep looking!”

As she reluctantly moved on, Victor turned back to the diagram, then began rifling through the sheets beneath it. They were all similar, but the third one had notations, and when Victor read them, things began to fall into place. The Warlord had labeled the strands—void, fire, blood, wind, and so on. “These are the pendejo’s stolen affinities!”

Victor sighed with disappointment. He’d hoped he’d stumbled on the Warlord’s notes for building his mantle, but it seemed like the man had been weaving his various Energy affinities for some reason. “But what, though?” Victor looked at the topmost sheet again. It was most definitely not a spell pattern. It really looked like something that would fit on a framework—not Victor’s, but wouldn’t it make sense that everyone who built a “weave” for their mantle might have a different sort of framework?

“But Energy? From where? His Core?” Victor’s mind tried to picture it—the gateway to the spirit was in the Core space, so—

“Victor! I think I found the ancestor shards!”

Victor looked up to see Cora standing before another display case, but she held a long, shoebox-sized coffer in her hands. “Did you open it?”

“Yes! Five crystal shards, all different colors!”

“Okay, I’ll take a look in a minute…” Victor’s response was half-hearted as he looked at the pattern again. How had the Warlord pulled different Energy affinities into his Core space? Victor’s gateway into his spirit was at the center of his Core construct, and all of the Energy passing through was attuned to hope—the central affinity. Of course, the first thought that came to mind was that it was a waste of time even to try to figure it out; his experience with his mantle would be different from that of the Warlord.

Nothing in his framework called for woven strands of Energy. His mantle was made up of memories, feelings, and experiences, not affinities. “But still…” Victor thought about his Core construct, picturing his massive blue sun-like globe of hope-attuned Energy. It was the only one feeding his spirit… He shook his head. That wasn’t exactly true. His fear and rage filtered through his hope-attuned Energy before passing into his Core space, but they still fed his spirit, albeit changed. Was that doing him more harm than good?

“Cora! I have to check something,” he yelled as he hastily sat on the marble floor.

“Yes, sir, I’m here…” Cora’s voice was distracted, but when his words registered, she yelled, “Victor! What did you say?”

Victor sighed, forcing himself to slow down. “Come here!”

Cora set something down on a shelf and hurried toward him, her soles clacking on the marble. “What is it, Victor? Are you injured?” She cocked her head to the side as she took in his seated position.

“No. I have to go into my spirit space for a minute. Stand here and nudge me if something comes up, but don’t touch anything else in here while I’m distracted. I’m not totally certain that there aren’t more traps.”

“You’re not?” Cora looked around with alarm. “But you had me searching through—”

Victor waved a hand. “Relax. My coyotes would have noticed if there was something really bad, and you’re smart enough to use your inner eye to examine things before you touch them, right?”

“Um,” Cora said, licking her lips. “Yes, of course.”

Victor smiled, lifting an eyebrow, but he let the matter rest. “Anyway, just don’t mess with anything until I get back.” With that, he closed his eyes and, just as he’d done thousands of times, pushed his awareness into his spirit space.

Seeing the Warlord’s notes had sent his mind racing down a dozen pathways, but some of them were more interesting than others. Some of them had his heart racing with excitement. It made sense to him that the Warlord’s mantle would have been based on his affinities. The pendejo spent his life stealing and using them, after all; it was a massive part of his identity. That wasn’t what had Victor excited, though. It was the idea that at least some steel seekers would need to have all of their affinities feeding into their spirit space in order to maximize their potential.

When Dar and, later, Chantico had guided him in the formation of his Core construct, they’d had good intentions, and they’d both shown him ways to improve his overall power. They’d both intended for him to…change himself by letting his positive affinities feed his spirit. Had their desire to help him inadvertently dulled the sharpness of his spirit? His hope was wonderful, and it had indeed been nice to feel its influence more strongly, but his fear and rage were also part of him. Was it wrong to dilute them? “Maybe not wrong, but…” He couldn’t think of the right word; all he could wonder was whether he was weakening himself for a bit of comfort.

As he stood up in his spirit space, he walked over to his skein, scanning his eyes over the tangled mass of threads. Something had been tickling the back of his brain ever since he’d begun to realize what the Warlord had drawn. He had threads of all types—primarily in shades of red, yellow, and blue, though with significant variation. Still, one thing he’d noted was that some were brighter than others, and some even had a metallic sheen—like the one he’d used to form his current mantle.

Victor began to pick out the brighter threads, the ones that shone metallic and drew his eye, and as he felt the experiences within, something stood out about those bright, shiny threads: they all involved some form of hope. They were threads that he’d singled out in the past because they felt stronger, more vital, more real than the duller threads. His hands began to sweat as his blood rushed through his ears, roaring like a waterfall.

It felt too right to be just a hunch. The clue the Warlord had given him, that drawing of whatever strange affinity mantle he’d created, suddenly clicked, and Victor, dumbstruck, asked, “Have I been hobbling my mantle by filtering my rage and fear through hope?”