Published at 24th of February 2024 10:32 am

Chapter 50

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My sole concession while I regenerated mana was a single telepathic message to my parents that said nothing more than, I’m working on a way to get you out of there. One way or another, you’ll be free tonight. Just hold on.

I did not try to have a conversation, since even that simple message cost me over an hour’s worth of mana production. Really, it was sentimental and foolish of me to do even that much. That was one spell I could have cast to save myself in the event that things went sideways when I crashed the meeting wasted on reassurances instead.

As the day moved towards evening, people started filtering out of the manor without being replaced. Eventually, it was just Karad, two other people from the Garrison, and the guy who ran the Collectors, Melmir.

I’d snuck around and figured out which servant’s room shared a wall with the parlor. Their voices were muted, but I could hear the conversation through the wood and plaster.

“What’s taking those two so long?” Melmir asked.

“Work to be done. They’ll be here soon,” Karad said.

“They should have already been here.”

“What do you want me to do, go out and drag them in by their ears?” Karad asked.

“You could send your two men there to go find them and escort them here,” Melmir said.

“I could, yes. Let me ask though, do you know who or what killed Lord Noctra? Are you confident that you can defend yourself if they come back?”

“I…” Melmir faltered. “Fine, we’ll continue to waste time. It’s not like I have anything better to do, right?”

“Melmir, I’ve seen how little you do. You oversee seven people and none of them need it. Iskara isn’t even here right now, ancestors only know where she’s gotten off to.”

Minutes ticked by and eventually, the parlor opened. A new voice joined the group, saying, “I’m not the last one here? I thought for sure I would be.”

“If only,” Melmir grumbled. “I’m sure you have a good excuse.”

“I take my job seriously,” the newcomer said. “And seeing as to how something from outside the barrier may have gotten in and murdered Lord Noctra, it’s been quite a day organizing my Wardens to account for extra shifts and overlapping patrol routes. We can’t all sit around doing nothing like you, Melmir.”

“I don’t just sit around all day,” Melmir sputtered while the other two men laughed.

The laughter was short-lived, and Karad asked, “Have you found anything out there?”

The third man, who I assumed to be Solidaire, said, “Other than Sellis and his family returning to the village? No. If the story one of my men told me is true, they’ve got some magic to them now. He was going to bring them in, and the next thing he knew, he woke up from a long nap near dawn with them nowhere to be found.”

“That’s troubling. When did Sellis become a mage?” Karad asked. “Just what happened to him out in the wastes?”

“Please, there’s no way that man learned how to do magic in secret,” Melmir said. “It’s been twenty-five years since the last time a spirit blessed someone that way. Sellis was barely a baby.”

“Isn’t Lord Noctra’s assistant able to do some spells despite not being a mage?” Karad asked.

“Well… yes, technically,” Melmir admitted reluctantly.

The sheer ignorance in this village was astounding. Even in a mana desert, people shouldn’t have so little knowledge of how magic operated. What had happened to this island that had isolated it so badly from the rest of the world that even the knowledge of how magic worked had disappeared? The map I’d seen had clearly marked a passage off the island on its northern shores, so there must have been trade with the mainland at some point in their history.

Maybe it was just the lack of ambient mana pushing down the importance of learning even the basics of how magic worked over the years. Not for the first time and certainly not for the last, I cursed my misfortune to be born in a place with so little mana that what should have taken me weeks to accomplish ended up costing me years.

I couldn’t fathom why people would even settle here in the first place. Maybe once, back before whatever disaster had befallen the region, but to come back and build civilization anew? Why? Were the original settlers running from something that needed magic to survive, some great beastly monster that couldn’t reach them here? Anything so powerful that it could chase thousands of people into the sea and only be stymied by a magical dead spot would certainly have been killed by one great power or another.

When I finally got out of this place, I was going to devote some real effort to figuring out exactly how so much had gone completely wrong in one specific location. There had to be an explanation, but I could not for the life of me guess what it was.

Eventually, the last person invited to their meeting showed up. She was a middle-aged woman named Shel, one of the few people living in the village whose voice I didn’t recognize at all. The Arborists had their own homes in the woods north of town they’d cultivated, practically had their own separate society, including a Collector who dealt with them specifically. That was how valuable their work cultivating a source of mana, fruit, and timber was to the village.

“Alright, I’m here. Let’s get this over with,” Shel announced as she swept through the door. It smacked closed behind her, and conversation died down at her appearance.

“So nice of you to join us,” Melmir said snidely.

“Go fuck yourself,” she said, her voice perfectly pleasant.

I let out a startled snort, then clamped my hand over my mouth. Hopefully no one had heard me. Considering how heated Melmir’s response sounded, I was probably safe. There were no less than three different people yelling and I heard furniture clattering as they surged to their feet.

“Enough,” Karad bellowed, cutting through everyone else. “You two out. The rest of you, sit down and let’s get this over with. We don’t have time for your bickering and sniping.”

I heard footsteps and the parlor door closing, then the sound of multiple people sitting down. “Alright,” Solidaire said. “We’re all here now. Start us off, Karad.”

“It’s simple,” the leader of the Garrison said. “Lord Noctra is dead and Iskara is missing. Someone needs to run the village. You all have your responsibilities already, and the Garrison is in the best position to step in and make sure things keep moving smoothly. It’ll be less disruptive for everyone if I handle enforcement of the laws just like I’ve always done.

“The problem is the magic. The closest we have to a mage to defend the village from monster attacks and keep the barrier functioning is sitting in a jail cell right now,” Karad said. “So, what do we do about this?”

“I maintain that there’s no way Sellis learned magic,” Melmir said.

“Why not?” Solidaire argued. “He was Lord Emeto’s student all those years ago. Who’s to say that he hasn’t figured out a few tricks on his own?”

“With what mana?” Melmir asked. “He’s not a mage. If he was, the Testing would have shown that.”

“He’s something,” Karad said. “The night he and his family disappeared, Lord Noctra summoned him to the manor, and then sent a few more of my people to get the rest of his family, all of whom vanished, and my guys reported something similar to what that Barrier Warden kid mentioned.”

“Mmm, yes, we had two people that were similarly asleep and unable to be woken that night,” Melmir said. “And all the mana held in the draw stones vanished as well. But it definitely wasn’t Sellis.”

“Who else would it be?” Shel asked. “I can promise it was none of my people, but you know I don’t keep tabs on what’s happening down here.”

“That’s just it. There’s no one else it could be. I assure you, we keep careful track of the tithe, and everyone contributes every night,” Melmir said.

“Well it has to be someone!” Karad said. He paused and added, “Doesn’t it?”

“I know of no such monster that sneaks around putting random people to sleep, if that’s what you’re asking,” Solidaire said. “Are we so sure this is related to Lord Noctra’s death?”

“Hell of a coincidence if it’s not,” Karad said. “What if Sellis stole something from the manor the night Lord Noctra summoned him, something that he could just point at a person and make them fall asleep?”

“Did Lord Noctra possess something like that?” Shel asked.

“I have no idea, truthfully. Cherok was up here trying to help us figure out what all these things here do, but he didn’t even have a guess on half of them.” Karad paused a beat, then added, “And I don’t trust half of what he did tell me.”

“What does Sellis himself have to say about this?” Solidaire asked. “Have you tried questioning him yet?”

“Him and his wife both gave me a story about Lord Noctra kidnapping Sellis, shipping him out in the middle of the night, bound-and-gagged in a cart, and the rest of his family going after him to rescue him.”

“Was there any way to verify or disprove that story?” Solidaire asked.

“Sure, just go ask Nermet what happened. He disappeared along with him and showed back up in the same group.”

“I somehow doubt the village simpleton is going to give me a clear story.”

“I tried anyway,” Karad said. “Didn’t get much out of him. He seems even more out of it than usual.”

“I never did understand why he was part of the Garrison to begin with,” Solidaire said.

“Big and strong, and as long as he has someone else with him to tell him what to do, he’s reliable,” Karad said.

“Plus he’s Karad’s nephew,” Melmir added.

“Ah. I see.”

“Let’s move this conversation back to the direction it needs to go,” Shel said. “Lord Noctra is dead. The barrier will fall soon if it hasn’t already, and there will be nobody to reactivate it. We should cease tithing immediately. People will need all their mana to defend themselves, and we’ll need volunteers to double or even triple the Barrier Wardens numbers.”

“Agreed,” Solidaire said. “What we’re doing now is only going to work for a week or two before my men are too tired to keep going. They’re going to start making mistakes and missing things.”

“I can get some Garrison people worked into your patrol schedules as a stop-gap measure,” Karad said. “Maybe we can get the Collectors trained up and folded into the Wardens for the time being.”

“But-” Melmir started to say before Shel cut him off.

“What are the odds that we can get a new mage sent here from Derro? How did that go last time?”

“It was two years between Lord Emeto’s death to Lord Noctra’s arrival,” Solidaire said. “A group of six of our best villagers braved the wastes to get to Derro and get help. Only four of them came back. It will almost certainly be some of mine that make the trip this time, and spirits blessing, another mage will be willing to relocate to the village. It’s best to proceed as if we’re on our own for the time being. Otherwise, Alkerist might cease to exist by the time anyone arrives to defend it.”

If there was ever a line custom-made for me to step into the conversation, that was it. I put together a phantasmal step spell and passed through the wall into the parlor to see the four of them seated around a table, their faces cast in dancing shadows from the light of several flicking candles and a single lantern hung from the ceiling.

“About that,” I said, announcing my presence and causing both Karad and Solidaire to recoil and jump to their feet. Melmir sat there, his jaw hanging low, and Shel looked at me with something that I thought might be curiosity. “I have some ideas if you’ve got a bit of time to hear me out.”

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