Soul Gem Collector 5 Chapter 7

“I’ll refresh the wards around the lab,” Taslyn began as we filed back into the staid brick building.

“No point.” I shook my head as I strode over to check the automatic mortar and pestles that were grinding the ingredients for the black powder. I had a bad feeling about the fight I’d just won, even though Ferox was starting to settle down again. I wasn’t really sure what to do about Cad and Otso, but I did know exactly how fine the charcoal and sulfur needed to be for the optimum burn rate. I noticed that the coal was still a little coarser than the sulfur, stopped the sulfur mortar, and then slowed down the coal mortar to a minimum grind. “Not unless you can find a ward that keeps them out exclusively.”

“I should have gotten some of Cad’s hair,” Taslyn mused, and she set her basket down on my worktable, sat down on the edge of the big purple bed, and then fell slowly backward into the soft silk cushions. Her copper hair frizzed out like a halo around her pale face as she snuggled her shoulders into the pillows. “They keep getting in. Like bedbugs. Noura, can you fetch us some victuals from the dining hall?”

“I can whip up anything you want here, you know.” Noura conjured a silver tray from the aether and held it out to Taslyn.

“I don’t mean to seem ungrateful, but I did just expend a great deal of magical energy.” Taslyn raised a shaking hand and tucked a lock of hair behind her pointed ear, and I saw that her face was more pale than usual. “I’ve never been in a magical fight like that before. Zayre, how are you feeling?”

“Like I drank a little too much beanbrew.” I took a deep breath and evaluated myself as the mortars stopped. My muscles were strung a little too tight and my thoughts ran slowly in rutted circles. I tried to concentrate on switching out the small doors that would slide the ground powder to the mixing cylinder. “I could use some sausage rolls and small beer.”

“And some fruit salad for the chakras.” Taslyn took a deep breath, then let it out with a gusty sigh. “I really would go and get some myself, but that took so much out of me. I’ve never had energy that strong flowing through me before. It was all I could do to control it.”

“Did the magic wear you out that much?” I frowned, checked to make sure that the transfer chutes were flowing, then went and sat beside Taslyn. I slid my hand across her forehead, but she didn’t seem hot or clammy. “I’m sorry, Tas. I thought it would be as easy for you as it was for me. I thought the power would just go right to you.”

“You wield the power, but you don’t bond with it.” Taslyn’s eyes grew infinitely deep and bright for a moment, and then her pupils shrank back to black pinpricks in her amber irises. She turned on her side and snuggled up against me. Her body was warmer than usual, but not by much, and it seemed like more the glow of exertion than the heat of a fever. “You let it pass through you without a trace, like an iron pipe that stands against water. When it leaves, you are not changed. As a mage, I cannot help but blend my own energetic body with the power I wield. Instead of being a pipe, I was a balloon. The magic changed my shape and filled me beyond my capacity. Now I am stretched to the breaking point, but I am still so empty.”

“I’ll be happy to fill you up, Taslyn,” Noura breathed. The djinn-girl opened a window, dissolved into a blue mist, and wafted out between the shutters.

“Is everything all right?” I turned to Taslyn. “Or did you just--”

Two trenches floated through the window, one after the other. The first tray was piled high with sausage rolls and pieces of roasted chicken, and the second tray was filled with pieces of sliced fruit. On the very end of the trencher sat two large glass bottles of water. The trenchers floated toward me and Taslyn, hovered in the air for a moment, and then settled down on a low wooden table that appeared right in front of us.

“I hope I got enough for you both.” Noura re-coalesced by the window and smiled. “I don’t believe anyone in the dining hall noticed much. I suppose students using magic in the dining hall is fairly common, though.”

“The ceremonial magicians like to create servitors to bring them meals,” Taslyn smirked. She sat up straight, and her pupils grew black and deep for a moment. The fox-girl’s lips opened and she licked her chops. Her pointed red tongue caressed the ivory tips of her fangs as her pupils returned to their normal shine. She reached forward, grabbed a piece of chicken, and tore into it. “Mmm. Thank you, Noura.”

“I’ll have to be more careful about what I feed you all.” Noura shook her head as she nestled on the couch, and then she folded her legs under her, ran her fingers through her hair, and shimmered back into her fiery form. “What’s next? Surely we ought to arrange a meeting with a representative of the King as soon as possible.”

“So we start figuring that out.” I took a sausage roll from the trencher, bit into the flaky crust, and felt the skin of the sausage snap between my teeth. “How do we even start doing that? Do you think there’s a King’s Guard outpost in Bergtory?”

“I’ve no idea, but your magic mirror might know,” Noura suggested. “I’ve seen people use the higher-end ones to find out all sorts of things.”

“Sure.” I dug out my magic mirror and flipped it open. “Mirror with a soothing ring, how do I get in touch with the King?”

“King Sweyn Forkbeard cannot be reached directly via this route,” the mirror told me as falling autumn leaves drifted across its silvery face. “Would you like to connect to the Office of the King?”

“Yes, perfect.” I peered into the swirling smoke of the mirror’s mid-connection screen. I didn’t think I was going to actually catch the king in his office, but I thought I might at least be directed to a secretary I could talk to. Instead, I peered into the clearing mist of the mirror to see the familiar symbol of Vottengard--two stags rampant on either side of a be-ringed hand rising from a river--silhouetted in white against a navy blue background.

“Welcome to the Office of His Royal Majesty Sweyn Forkbeard, King of Vottengard,” a soft and oily voice said. “If you would like to submit a blessing, praise, or well-wish to the King, please say ‘Praise.’ If you would like to submit a complaint, curse, or protest against a policy, please say ‘Curse.’ If you would like to ask the King a question about his life, duties, or personal opinions, please say ‘Chat’. If you would like to request that the King proclaim a special day, send a personal message, or make a personal appearance, please ask for the King’s Personal Secretary. If you have a tip about treason, sedition, conspiracy, or personal harm to the King--”

“That one!” I tapped at the mirror with one finger. “I have a tip about treason.”

“Please contact the Security Office of the King’s Guard,” the voice continued.

“All right, get me the Security Office of the King’s Guard,” I replied.

“Transferring,” the soft voice said as a wisp of smoke drifted across the King’s seal. “Welcome to the Security Office of the King’s Guard. If you would like to request the presence of the King’s Guard because of a local or potential uprising, please say ‘Fight.’ If you have a tip about treason, sedition, conspiracy, or personal harm to the King, please say ‘Tip.’ If you would like to apply for employment--”

“Tip, tip, tip!” I barked at the mirror. I sat up straight and ran a hand over my close-cropped hair as the wisps of smoke drifted across the seal. “Give me the tip!”

“Thank you for calling the Tip Line of the Security Office of the King’s Guard,” the soft voice said. “Please speak clearly and leave a name or address at which we can contact you. We will evaluate your tip and get back to you in order of urgency.”

“Great!” I said to the mirror. “I have evidence that the Korlem family is illegally trading with the Iron Dwarves, and that the Iron Dwarves are massing their forces to attack the River Kingdoms. I can even provide evidence. There’s going to be a meeting with the Iron Dwarves, and I’m going to record it. If we move fast, we can--”

“Thank you for your tip,” the soft voice interrupted me. “The Security Office of the King’s Guard will contact you after evaluating your tip.”

The mirror clouded over with wisps of smoke and returned to the familiar falling leaf pattern of the default background.

“Fuck,” I groaned. “I didn’t have time to leave my name or anything. Do you think I should call back?”

“I always heard that the King’s Guard can trace back any call you make on the mirror network.” Noura patted me on the shoulder. “I’m sure they’ll be able to figure out who turned in the tip.”

“That is why Mr. Kay gave you that special mirror, wasn’t it?” Taslyn grabbed a linen napkin that had appeared on her trencher and wiped a sheen of grease off of her mouth. “He never said as much, but I simply assumed.”

“Yeah.” I stared at the mirror in my hand. “I really should call back.”

“Don’t, you’ll sound crazy.” Taslyn wiped her hands off, then dipped her fingers into the piles of green, red, and orange fruit. “They’ll be much less likely to bother with you if you sound crazy.”

“Do you really think they won’t investigate every tip they get?” Noura sat up straight and frowned. “It would be remiss of them.”

“I’m sure they get hundreds of calls a day from crackpots who think there’s a plot brewing right under their noses,” Taslyn said. “And probably quite a few counterfeiting operations and things like that. I think you conveyed the urgency of the situation rather well.”

“I didn’t even give them a date for the meeting,” I said. I frowned at the mirror. “It’ll be fine if they don’t call back until after the meeting, right? As long as I get the whole thing recorded on the magic mirror.”

“It might even be better to call them back when you actually have the evidence,” Noura remarked.

“Ugh, maybe.” I raked my fingers across my scalp and stared at the mirror. “Maybe this was a bad idea. What if the person who screens my message was in league with the Korlems too? Or what if they just never get back to me at all?”

“Maybe we should try asking Janel,” Taslyn suggested. “Who else do we know that has connections with royalty?”

“That doesn’t mean she knows King Sweyn personally,” I said. “Her family is Inkatian. They’re all the way down at the other end of the Merenge where it empties out into the Delnubian Ocean.”

“Noble families always have all sorts of connections with each other,” Taslyn said. “At any rate, we’ve got a better chance of finding someone we can trust through her. Why don’t you give her a call instead?”

“It’s worth a shot,” I agreed. I missed seeing Janel’s face. I had gotten used to spending time with her every day at this point. I knew that her parents were keeping her pretty busy with the wedding planning, and I was kind of glad that I didn’t need to spend hours picking out tablecloth colors and flower arrangements, but it felt like a little piece of me was gone when she wasn’t around. I pulled the mirror back a little so I could get Taslyn and Noura in. “All right. Mirror of which I am fond, connect me with Janel Lerond.”

Silver bells played a perky tune as wisps of smoke covered the falling leaves. The tune repeated a few times, and after about four repetitions I was starting to wonder if Janel was actually going to pick up. The bells stopped in the middle of the fifth repetition, however, and the wisps of smoke cleared to show Janel’s gorgeous brown face.

“Darling!” Janel exclaimed. Her long black hair was piled up in a braided beehive on top of her head, her left eyelid was painted with gold and pearl shimmer, and her right eyelid was painted with crimson red and gold highlights. Behind her, folds of cream-colored fabric reflected a soft and gentle light. “You’ve called at quite a time, we’re just consulting with a stylist. Which eye do you think looks better?”

“The left one,” Noura and Taslyn chimed in together.

“I thought so.” Janel nodded.

“Is there anyone around who can hear you?” I whispered. “It’s a little… political.”

“Ooh.” Janel’s jade-green eyes went wide. She glanced around, and then sank down against the cream fabric. “What’s going on?”

“I’ll fill you in on most of it later, but short story is we need you to figure out who you know at the Kingsguard,” I whispered. “Our efforts came up short.”

“A direct connection to King Sweyn would be ideal, if you’ve got one,” Noura added.

“Oh dear.” Janel tapped her fingers on her chin and frowned. “Nothing is coming to mind, but Mama and Papi would know.”

“We can’t ask them for help!” Taslyn hissed. “We’ll give it all away.”

“It’s not like I’m going to tell them the truth.” Janel stood up, and the view on the mirror rose to roughly the height of her lovely breasts. She was wearing a simple green velvet dress that matched her gorgeous eyes, and the mirror was angled just right to show off her perky, round breasts. “Mama, we have someone from the King’s Guard coming to the wedding, right?”

“The King’s Guard?” Lady Lerond’s voice floated across the background. “Everyone will have their own security.”

“Or anyone from the Vottengardian Royal Household, then?” Janel asked. “Zayre’s a native, and it would be nice for him if there was an emissary of his King there to welcome him to his responsibilities.”

“Of course I sent invitations to the Royal Family.” Lady Lerond replied. “One always does for a wedding.”

“I mean, to someone who would be likely to come?” Janel asked. “Realistically?”

“None of your attitude today!” Lady Lerond shrilled. “We have sent out invitations to everyone in our address books, and I can assure you that--”

“I’ll talk to you tomorrow at the fitting,” Janel whispered as the mirror’s angle sharply changed to show her face. She raised her hand to her wine-red lips, blew a kiss, and then snapped the mirror shut.

“We tried,” I sighed. I snapped the mirror shut and dropped it into my lap, then reached for another sausage roll. “Well, I don’t know how else to reach the King, and I don’t have it in me to start on the spy spell just yet. Want to head over to the library and look up lightning creatures? I still need to find one of those.”

“I have a better idea.” Taslyn sat up. “We ought to head over to the Philomenus Tower. The agraturgists love impressing people with their micro-climate spells. I’m sure we’ll be able to pick up something useful there.”

“Those are the ones you said like to party, right?” I grinned and raised my eyebrows at Noura. “What do you think, Noura? Want to check out a good old-fashioned university rager?”

“It’s been years since I’ve attended a party as a guest.” Noura stood up and gestured at her simple white dress. Her clothing shimmered for a moment, and then resolved into a purple sequined sheath dress that barely covered her dark brown thighs, bright purple leather boots that hit just below her naked thighs, and a fluffy lavender feather boa. Her curly black hair arranged itself in a carefree spray on top of her head and adorned itself with shots of purple curls. “I’m ready when you two are!”

The Agriturgical Arts section of the campus was in the far southeastern corner of the campus. It was, like my laboratory, surrounded by a wide strip of trees. Their trees weren’t a random assemblage of hardwoods meant to baffle sound, but neatly planted and pruned rows of fruit trees with wooden tags tied to each branch. One row of the trees we passed grew apples and pears in shades of blue and purple, and the next row had trees with pears, pomegranates, and peaches hanging from a single branch together. Yet another row of trees sprouted what looked like small plucked chickens, and the row of shrubs next to it fruited small pieces of pinkish meat nestled in shiny brown leaves.

“Ham bushes,” Taslyn explained as she led us down a row of tall birches with silvery fish hanging from their branches. “There’s a school of thought among some agraturgists that keeping animals for our benefit is immoral. So they’ve been working on experimental meat husbandry. They don’t even keep bees. When it’s spring, you’ll see them up and down the trees on ladders, pollinating each blossom by hand.”

“I can’t decide if that sounds like more work than just keeping the animals or not,” I remarked.

“It’s to cut down on slaughterhouse expenses in the city,” Taslyn explained. “I worked on the chicken tree project for about a year when I was in the Agraturgy program. Unfortunately, the soil supplements you need to produce healthy meat are almost as expensive as just keeping the animals themselves.”

“You’ve learned nearly every kind of magic they teach here, haven’t you?” Noura asked. “You must have worked so hard to get all of that in your head, Taslyn.”

“You’ve never studied?” Taslyn raised an eyebrow.

“I’ve read books, but I’ve never had to study magic,” Noura said. “And I can conjure as easily as you can walk. I don’t even know if I can do the kind of magic that you do.”

“I never thought of it that way.” Taslyn’s cheeks pinked slightly, but she put her finger to her lips as we neared the end of the treeline. “Discretion, please. You never know who’s working in the orchards.”

The inner core of the Agriturgical Arts area was not so much a single building as it was a patchwork of tiny, rectangular fields dotted with sheds and silos and filled with every kind and color of crop one could grow. The wooden fences that separated the fields were studded with crystals and carved with spells, and at least half of the fields had some kind of sarsen stone or wicker-man structure in the middle. Several fields had tiny clouds drifting over them at low altitudes. Students in robes and overalls strolled between the fields or bent down with wicker baskets at their sides.

“It’s been a really long time since I’ve been here,” I admitted as I took in the unique scene of the rolling fields. I could see a faint row of green on the horizon. I was pretty sure the orchard was way too small to hold the fields inside, so I figured that either I’d seriously underestimated the size of the orchard or they used space-folding spells to generate more land as needed. “The Aggies usually like to fix their own equipment. Which one’s Philomenus Tower, again?”

“Right over there.” Taslyn pointed to the corner of the field. “It’s where they do the high-atmospheric weather work.”

The Philomenus Tower was even more utilitarian and plain than the alchemy laboratory, and I suspected that it had been rebuilt multiple times. The base was a flat, squat building made from what looked like large gray bricks, with small glass windows and plain steel doors. Its roof was made out of glass tiles and slanted downward one way. The “tower” part of the tower was a featureless cone of sheet steel that rose for nearly two hundred feet from the middle of the glassy roof. The cone culminated in a small steel ball from which rose a complicated assemblage of wooden rods, copper wire, and crystals.

“Ah, the place hasn’t changed much since the last hurricane.” Taslyn headed to the steel door, pulled it open, and gestured us inside.

“We’ve never had a hurricane in Bergtory.” I stepped inside, stuck my hands into my pockets, and looked around. I’d never actually been inside of the Philomenus Tower before, and although I didn’t recognize most of the equipment, I was pleased to see that it resembled the working chaos of the alchemy lab more than anything.

The ground floor of the tower seemed to be one big room, much like the lab, but with passages and aisles demarcated by tool cabinets, work benches, and specimen cabinets of wood and glass. The bare gray brick walls were lined with wooden shelves full of threadbare cloth books that were stuffed with what appeared to be paper notes, supplements, and appendices. Most of the workbenches held stacks of paper or assemblages of crystal and wire, but some of them held alchemical equipment like alembics with their burners turned low and their glass fogging with condensation. The sunlight that poured in from the glass-paneled ceiling only highlighted the motes of dust that swirled in the air.

The area under the cone was in shadow, but the only thing to suggest its function was a metal pole that descended from the very center of the cone and ended in a small crystal-studded base.

“I assure you that all of our hurricanes have been very localized!” A chubby black squirrel-girl with a white patch at the end of her tail hustled up to meet us. She was wearing a checked shirt with the sleeves rolled up, blue overalls with pockets sewn all over, and a pair of rubber boots. The squirrel girl grinned at Taslyn, then shook her head. “Are you trying to scare your friends, Taslyn? Folks, I assure you that you have no chance whatsoever of encountering a hurricane today!”

“So you’re not doing any storm-raising lately?” Taslyn flashed her friend a quick faux-pout, then patted her on the back. “It’s good to see you, Susi. I was hoping to give Noura and Zayre here a lightning show.”

“Hi, folks!” Susi raised her paw and gave us a gap-toothed grin. “Sorry, but we don’t usually raise storms after the harvest season starts. There’s too much risk of bruising the fruit. You know that, Tas.”

“Noura’s from out of town, and I thought I might try.” Taslyn shrugged. “What are you up to, then? There’s not much weather about.”

“Monitoring the humidity.” Susi nodded at the metal pole in the center of the cone. “I’m working on a project that should help regulate ice crystal formation during dry days to promote gentle precipitation, but there’s hardly anything up there today. All I’ve been doing is crunching numbers. I’m sorry, but there’s nothing very interesting going on today.”

“That’s quite a worthwhile project,” Noura said. “I’m from Diafloria. It only rains for a few months out of the year there.”

“Well, it’s just in the research stages,” Susi said. “Right now we’re trying to figure out if the shape of the crystals has anything to do with it. Might be a dead end--”

“Do you mind terribly if I show my friends around while you work?” Taslyn interrupted. “We did come all this way.”

“Oh sure, sure.” Susi flapped her hand. “Go right ahead, hon. And I’m always happy to answer questions about weather magic, you know.”

“Actually--” I began, but Noura interrupted me. She didn’t usually do that, so I figured she had a good reason.

“I’m just so fascinated by this ecosystem,” the dark-skinned djinn trilled. “Do you ever find magical storm creatures when you summon storms? I’ve heard that thunder birds fly about up here!”

“Boy, I wish we attracted creatures that big,” Susi mused. Her eyes slid to the side, and her gap-toothed smile turned sly. She crooked a finger to beckon us, then headed toward the back of the building as her tail fluffed up behind her. “Come on. We’ve got a little collection of what Professor Maitake calls raiju. I call ‘em sparkies. She uses them for her mushroom patch, but she’s on sabbatical right now…”

“Sparkies?” I asked. I patted my back pocket, where I’d stuck a diamond-shaped ruby. I wasn’t sure quite what I’d been expecting when Taslyn had suggested the Philomenus Tower, but I definitely hadn’t thought I’d have a lightning creature practically handed to me on a silver platter. “So they’re lightning elementals?”

“Not exactly,” Susi said. She stopped in front of a thick, unadorned wooden cabinet and slowly slid the door open. “Feast your eyes, curious people!”

Four tall glass jars lined the inside of the cabinet, each one stopped with a cork instead of a metal lid. From inside each jar emanated a blue, white, or yellow glow, and my eyes took a second to adjust to the glow before I could see the outlines of what the jars held. The first three jars held what looked like jagged balls of multicolored lightning, but as I peered at the bolts that bounced off of the glass walls I could make out shapes in the sparks.

The first three jars were filled purely with bottled lightning. The first jar held a spider with a glowing blue ball of a body and eight jagged bolt-legs that split off in several directions. The spider sat on a fat white web that coruscated in and out of existence as the lightning crackled around the jar.

The second jar held a fat, sleek creature that looked like a weasel or a mink, but with a pointed nose. Blue and yellow stripes crackled across the outline of its glowing body like stripes on a cat. It stood on its hind legs with its white sparking fore claws pressed against the right side of the jar, and its mouth opened in a jagged-toothed snarl.

“She found those two fighting together at the center of the storm!” Susi pointed at the middle two jars. “Once she got the cobra away from the mongoose, the storm cleared right up.”

The third jar held a sinuous, sizzling cobra. The lightning snake opened its mouth and bared its fangs at the mongoose, and little blue sparks flew from the points of its teeth. The scales on its back shimmered in yellow and white bolts, and reformed itself every few moments as the snake moved.

The fourth jar was a little more complex than the first two. A gray mist filled the top quarter of the bottle, and a thick white rain fell from the cloud’s dark bottom. The rain twisted itself into the curvaceous shape of a tiny woman just a few inches down. The woman flattened herself against the far side of her jar as the cobra bared its fangs. Her eyes and mouth glowed blue as they opened wide, and blue lighting sparks crackled from her hands as she spread her fingers against the glass.

“Now that one’s a vila.” Susi tapped on the side of the little rain woman’s glass jar. “She doesn’t produce as much voltage as the other three, though.”

“Oh, she’s scared,” Noura cooed. She bent down and peered at the vila. “Don’t you think it’s cruel to keep her next to these monsters?”

“Eh, Professor Maitake knows what she’s doing,” Susi shrugged. “She’s got wards on the jars and everything, so it’s not like any of them are in danger.”

“Zayre, you didn’t exactly come here for the creatures, did you?” Taslyn patted me on the shoulder and smiled at Susi. “Zayre’s an alchemist. He’s actually been trying to generate lightning from magnets, but he’s having some trouble. I know you’re not storm-raising right now, but do you think you could show him some of your equipment?”

“An alchemist, huh?” Susi’s tail curled up in a question mark, and her pointy black ears perked up. “I guess it wouldn’t hurt to do a little interdisciplinary sharing. But I have some questions about nitrogen I want to ask you, Zayre.”

“I’m happy to share what I know.” I glanced at Taslyn, then smiled back at Susi. “Lead the way.”

“Now, we do use some traditional storm-raising methods, including the flint-casting and both water-bowl methods,” Susi chatted as she led me through the warren of workbenches and paper stacks. “But when we model wildfire, we don’t want water putting it out. So we use two pieces of fulgurite, which is just lightning-struck sand fused into the shape of the--”

A crash came from behind us, followed by a tiny thunderclap.

“Shit!” Susi screeched, and the squirrel girl skittered past me in a blur of black fur.

“I’m so sorry!” Noura clapped her hands to her mouth and stood stock-still next to the open cabinet. Next to her lay the shards of the vila’s jar, but the vila herself was nowhere to be seen.

“Oh no, oh no,” Susi groaned. She clapped her paws to her chubby face. “The prof is gonna kill me…”

The light that sluiced through the ceiling started to darken, and a gentle wind ruffled the edges of the stacked papers. Mist began to drift down from the ceiling and swirl into disembodied curves. A hand beckoned and then whirled away, a hip and a leg drifted in front of me, and a pair of glowing blue eyes formed in the center of the cloud. Tiny bolts of lightning jumped here and there in the mist, and each sparking bolt illuminated another piece of the vila’s body.

“Forget the professor, that creature could destroy the entire campus!” Taslyn grabbed Susi’s shoulders. Her amber eyes were wild and her red tail was bushed up. “How do we stop it?”

“I don’t know!” Susi squeaked. “Maitake just threw her jars at them.”

“Zayre, use your battle magic!” Noura cried. “We can’t let it get out and harm anyone else.”

“Let’s see what I can do,” I muttered as I dug in my heels and held up my hands. I could only feel Ferox’s keen interest in the creature, so I presumed that it didn’t mean us any harm, but that didn’t mean it couldn’t cause us a lot of damage. I was pretty sure that Noura had broken the jar deliberately so I could capture the vila, and I knew it must have been hard for her to knowingly send the captured nature spirit to its death.

The only problem was that I had no idea how to kill a vila.