Book 3, Chapter 17

The floating island stretched out before me, nearly a mile of bare stone interrupted only by massive cairns lined up one after another. They spiraled out from the very center, where a single mausoleum sized for the enormous brakvaw stood its lonely vigil over the hundreds and hundreds of graves.

Sitting in front of that mausoleum was a bird whose feathers had faded from a full, rich black to something dull and gray. His body was stooped, his limbs heavy with weariness, and his head slumped down onto his chest. Mana cycled through him, and endless torrent rising up from below into his body and out through his feathers in every direction.

I landed in front of the bird and said, “I see my mistake now. I assumed your true form was tucked away in the tower below.”

Grandfather cracked an eye open to peer at me. “I am a prisoner here, I’m afraid. Were I to leave, the mana would cease to flow and this would all come crashing down to the ground.”

“Hardly an enviable fate,” I said. “Though… I am starting to piece together how your kind wields mana, and I think I would be correct in assuming that it is only your body trapped here, that your mind is free to roam on the currents of mana that radiate outward from here.”

“To some extent,” Grandfather agreed. “I find as I get older, more and more of my mana gets tied up just trying to keep my body from failing. Someday, you’ll understand what that’s like.”

I snorted. “Believe me, I know. That’s why I’m in this body now. My old one was taking up too much of my energy just keeping my heart pumping and air in my lungs.”

“You are a body thief?” Grandfather asked, staring hard at me.

“No, no. Nothing like that. I simply devised a method to keep my memories intact through the reincarnation cycle.”

“Impossible,” the old bird said. “And even if you could, the chances of being reborn as the same species twice in a row…”

“Oh yes, I researched that quite heavily. I spent decades working on this project and needed a full lunar convergence to make it happen. Trust me when I say it was one of the most difficult things I ever did in my previous life, but I think the results speak for themselves.”

“Impossible,” Grandfather said again. “And yet… I sense no deception in you.”

“I believe we had a deal,” I said, changing the subject. “If I could make it up here, you agreed to tell me where to find what’s left of Ralvost.”

“So I did. Very well, you’re obviously capable enough to defend yourself.” Grandfather didn’t move, didn’t make any sort of sound, but the mana cycling through his body twisted into a new pattern and an illusory map formed in the air. One spot started flashing blue. “We are here on this mountain on the east side of the island.”

I studied the map intently, looking for landmarks that I recognized. Unfortunately, it was only filled in properly along the various eyries and the mana currents that connected them. The rest was faded, sometimes blank completely. It seemed the brakvaw preferred to chart their courses from mountain to mountain, which meant the map had much of the east side filled in, but very little of the lowlands to the west.

Outside the island, however, I got my first surprise. We were not surrounded by endless miles of ocean like I’d foolishly assumed. In fact, the island itself was separated by a channel that was probably only thirty or forty miles wide at the most. The whole continent was like that. I counted eleven islands, including our own, all with narrow channels separating them. They were arranged like a pie that had been cut into slices, just a circle of land with thick rivers running through them.

Most of the islands were triangular, each one pointing toward the center where the various channels all crossed over each other. I had never seen a land mass quite like it. If anything, it reminded me of a ceramic plate that had been dropped on the floor and shattered.

Unaware of my musings, Grandfather continued to manipulate the map. “Here is where the former kingdom of Ralvost was founded,” he said. The area in the center where all the tips of the triangular islands pointed lit up. “As you can see, the kingdom spanned several islands, presumably prior to the separating of the land into pieces. Each island eventually became its own country and spread out to fill as much space as it could.”

“I see. This will be a longer journey than I thought. Do you know if these other islands have similar climates to this one?”

“Some do, but to my knowledge, none are quite so… dead, as it is here.”

I mentally cursed my luck. For the longest time, I’d been wondering if I’d had the misfortune to be born in the worst possible place, and it seemed my pessimistic thoughts had proven to be correct. Literally anywhere else would have resulted in an easier life for me.

It was far too late to do anything about it now. I’d invested enough of my own time and mana into Sanctuary that it would soon be the perfect place to claim as a new genius loci when I reached the sixth stage of core development. I doubted I’d find any natural location with the kind of mana density I expected that valley to develop over the next decade or so.

“You have towers all over the continent,” I said, tracing the connections. “How sure are you that they all still stand?”

“I would feel a break in the stream,” Grandfather told me. “I know that all of our waypoints still exist.”

“Then I could follow this route from here to the lost kingdom,” I mused aloud as I plotted my course. With elemental form, I could get there in a day, though it would take me weeks to recover the spent mana if I went now. It would be better to wait until I’d advanced my mana core to stage four. I’d be able to hold ten times as much mana and generate it five times faster than I could now, possibly more.

My original calculations hadn’t accounted for the lack of ambient mana in the world around me, and I had a theory that the astral realm and the physical world were out of balance, that we were all pulling mana into our cores just a little bit faster than we normally would. If I was right, then the excess generation would only increase as I got stronger, and a five times increase was the minimum I could expect.

As soon as my physical body was fully grown, I’d find out for sure. For now, it remained an untestable theory. None of the new mages I was tutoring were ready to advance to stage two, let alone three or four. Discovering how to shape a mana lattice was a personal journey, and the act of actually making it was even more so. It had to be built inside a mage’s mana core, piece by piece, like building a ship in a bottle.

Idly, I wondered how the brakvaw culture approached their own mana cores and whether there was anything to be learned there. Their cycled mana was fascinating, but I feared it might not be replicable. Some creatures just had biologies that allowed them to use mana in ways humans couldn’t mimic.

“Thank you,” I said. “This helps me a great deal. I now have a destination, and you’ve saved me an immeasurable amount of mana I might have wasted searching for it.”

“I’m happy to have been helpful,” Grandfather told me. “If you might indulge my curiosity, what are you looking for so far away from your home?”

“Answers,” I said. “I’ve got pieces of the puzzle, but not the whole thing. This world lost a moon a thousand years ago or more, and its mana core was broken in the process. I want to know exactly how it was done, and what it’ll take to fix it.”

“That is a lofty ambition,” Grandfather said after a moment of contemplation. “I wish you the very best in your journey, but now, I think it is time for you to return to the ground below.”

There was some truth to that. I’d brought an air supply with me and my magic was warding off the freezing cold up here, but every moment spent was a bit of mana I wouldn’t have for later. Before I left, though, I had to ask, “Why do you stay here?”

“I cannot leave, not without this island falling.”

“Your magic keeps it aloft, but couldn’t you do the same from down below? Forgive me; I’m not familiar with how your spells work, but it seems like you should be able to adjust your position in the cycle easily enough.”

“Not so easily as you might think,” Grandfather told me, “but you are essentially correct. It is possible to preserve our ancestors with this magic and exist in the more comfortable lands below. The problem is quite simple. I cannot be in two places at once, and while I am descending, this island would fall with me. Without someone else to maintain the magic, I am stuck here.”

“None of your kin are willing to help you?” I asked.

“No, none of them are able to perform this magic. You must understand that I am very old, and in many, many ways beyond my descendants.”

“Perhaps I might be of assistance,” I offered. “Providing you are willing to teach me how your kind interacts with mana.”

“Bah, do not worry about an old bird. You have your own adventures to enjoy.”

“I will be here for another year before I am ready,” I said. “My own projects require that before I can freely travel the world, but I could make time for some lessons if you are willing.”

“Teach a human our ways,” Grandfather murmured to himself. Both eyes opened to stare at me. “It is not done, but then, there are so few of us left now. Perhaps it is time to retire some old traditions and forge new paths.”

That wasn’t a no, but it wasn’t necessarily a yes. I wasn’t sure what else I could offer to sweeten the deal. If Grandfather wanted to sit up here and freeze to maintain his magical floating graveyard, I wasn’t going to be the one to tell him how foolish his ambitions were. But I would happily deal fairly with him, especially since his assistance would accelerate the speed at which I mastered brakvaw mana manipulation, and stepping in to manage the mana flows for an hour or two would be a small price to pay for that help.

“Allow me to think on it for a time,” Grandfather said. “I trust you know the way back here later. If nothing else, you can simply follow the mana.”

“I can,” I assured him.

“Come back in a week. I will consider your offer and discuss it with the others.”

“I understand,” I said. “Goodbye for now then, Grandfather.”

“Farewell, my interesting new friend.”

There wasn’t much I could do in a week. It was too short to start anything important, and more time than I needed for the basic maintenance I did on Sanctuary or to replenish alchemical supplies. But that was what he’d asked for, so that was what I’d give him. With or without his help, I wasn’t going to give up on a potential technique to save myself a great deal of mana, but for now, I’d continue to play nicely.

If he declined my offer, though, I’d have to figure it out on my own, and that meant finding samples to study. I had a feeling Grandfather wouldn’t appreciate my backup plan, though, so I opted not to tell him. With any luck, it wouldn’t be necessary.