Vol 5, Chapter 14

A dead-end alley where street sweepers rarely came. Between stone buildings hung a torn web, black with soot. The workshop door, crudely built from darkened wood, stood out only because of the new sign nailed directly to its boards. It was wedged between two large buildings, likely warehouses. The neighborhood was far from pleasant: this was the "garage" district. I wouldn't have been surprised if graffiti covered everything, though fortunately, mages didn't indulge in that.

"This is the workshop you were looking for," the captain said, pointing to the sign, while his men "casually" blocked the exit from the alley. Did they suspect we'd lied? Then why bring us here instead of calling their superiors?

"Yes, I see," I said, frowning, and knocked on the door.

Nothing. I grabbed the wooden handle and pulled.

With a piercing creak, the door opened. Inside, dim light. A single beam from the window caught the dust motes floating in the air. I saw a young man of about twenty sitting at a wooden table, working with metal parts. He wore servant-like clothing: a brown shirt, trousers… but hanging from a nail in the wall beside him was a red robe.

We needed a woman. Behind him was another door, perhaps Ashley was there? But I asked first.

"Greetings. My name is Randal Condor, Viscount Randal Condor, and a member of the official delegation of the Kingdom of Steel…" I paused to give him a chance to introduce himself, but he stayed silent, tinkering with the metal.

"…and I'm looking for Ashley. Do you know where she is?" I finished.

The man stiffened, a metal plate slipping from his hand to the wooden floor with a sharp clink.

"Why?" he asked, speaking for the first time in a scratchy, unpleasant voice.

"Nothing bad. I just want to talk. About the transport she built."

"She's not here. Talk to me," he said, picking up the plate.

The room lit up with a fireball.

"Hey, mind your manners!" Asha threatened, shaking her fist.

He shrugged indifferently, and a blindingly white spark appeared on his fingertip. The plate heated to a red glow, and he picked up other parts from the table, pressing them against it. Where his finger touched, the metal flowed.

Contact welding with a fingertip? Hah, amusing.

"Maybe leave that to a metal mage? Otherwise, it'll be the weak point in your construction," I suggested.

"Yes," he replied flatly, continuing his work.

That was the end of that discussion.

He pulled a spring from under the table, welded it to the plate, pressed down with his full weight to compress it, and fixed it in place. It was hard to tell what he was building, though it looked like a spider's leg. Personally, I doubted a spring would work in that design, but I decided to wait and see… maybe it was just a stage of assembly.

Asha, however, took his ignoring her badly.

"Don't show off!" she shouted, extinguishing her fireball.

Instead, a wave of cold air swept through the room, centered on the metal piece the mage was assembling. She meant to stop his work, but forgot one small detail.

Clang. The plate cracked from the sudden cooling, and the spring tore it apart, hurling fragments in all directions from the mage—into the wall, into the ceiling… and straight at me.

A coin-sized fragment shot toward my chest at the speed of a crossbow bolt. I barely managed to throw my palm into its path, hoping it would slow enough for me to get away with nothing worse than a hole in my hand, but the instant the sharp edge touched my skin… I realized it wasn't going to be bad.

The shard never had time to pierce. I turned it into molten metal mid-flight. It slammed into my hand like a club, scattering drops of cold metal to the sides. Unpleasant. My palm buckled under the blow, but I clenched it, catching most of the projectile.

That was it, the momentum was gone. I fought the urge to shake out my bruised hand and sent Asha a furious glare. The idiot had almost killed me.

And that would have been the dumbest possible death.

Keeping my composure, I solidified the metal, shaping it into a medal. I stepped toward Asha. She stepped back. Another step… and another, until her back hit the wall.

I raised my hand and pressed the medal to her chest, fusing it into her robe.

Her gaze dropped to read the inscription.

"Idiot?"

"Wear it with pride," I said, turning to the mage.

He set aside the frozen piece, staring at us in annoyance.

"Please leave," he said, with some politeness.

"I still need to speak to Ashley. I wanted to offer her a partnership," I said firmly.

Though it would've sounded more convincing a few minutes ago, I wasn't backing down.

"Leave. She's against it."

"If that's so, I'll leave, but only after I hear it from her."

"I'm her husband. I speak for her."

I measured him with my eyes. If he was against it, that would complicate matters. Still, I had to hear it from her. Only… it really did seem she wasn't here. She'd have run out to us during the incident otherwise.

Continue waiting indefinitely? I didn't want to, but we'd already spent so much time…

"When will she be back?"

"Not soon," he said, starting to thaw the frozen structure now completely covered in frost.

I pulled a second chair closer and sat down.

"We'll wait."

The guy sighed heavily and rolled his eyes, as if asking the gods why he had to deal with all this. Asha looked around for a third chair, but there wasn't one. This couple clearly didn't expect guests. She gave me a pleading look at my lap, but I silently pointed to the medal. She snorted, went to the table, swept all the parts to the floor, plopped herself down on the tabletop, and cheerfully swung her legs right next to my shoulder.

I am never taking her to negotiations again.

We sat in silence for about ten minutes until the front door creaked open.

On the threshold stood a slender brunette in a simple dress, holding a worn leather bag.

"Marvin, do you know why there are so many sniffers on our street?" she asked, stepping into the room—then froze.

"What sniffers?" Asha asked, waving at her in greeting.

"That's what she calls the patrol," Marvin answered for her.

"Yes… They walk around, sniffing out everything, looking for conspiracies and dissenters. Sniffers, in a word. And you…" Ashley's eyes fixed on the 'badge of honor' hanging on the mage girl's chest.

"That's not true!" Asha shouted, covering the medal with her hand. A pulse of magic, and the inscription melted away, leaving the surface smooth.

Before it all turned into a circus, I cleared my throat and introduced myself.

"Viscount of Eagle's Cliff and Baron of Reikland, Randal Condor. I've come to the Commonwealth as part of the official delegation. And this is my... good-for-nothing companion."

"Hey! You're the good-for-nothing!"

The girl nodded and introduced herself in turn.

"I'm Ashley, and this is Marvin. What brings you here?"

"To offer work," I said without delay. "In the Kingdom."

"We refuse," Marvin replied instantly, as if he had been waiting for this very moment.

"Wait, we haven't even heard the terms!" Ashley rebuked him.

"My father told me it's only worth working for a Duke or a King. He's neither."

"And my father told me that getting out of the Tower is already good enough."

"And you managed that because he recommended us to the rector. Do you want to destroy the rector's trust and end up back in the Tower?"

"Maybe he'll send us back anyway if he doesn't like the results. You can't rely on luck."

"He'll definitely send you back if he learns you plan to run off to the Kingdom!"

"Oh, come on, we're just small fry. Why would he care?"

Marvin threw up his hands as if he couldn't believe the discussion had gone this far. The girl, on the other hand, turned to us and opened her bag.

"It's hard to give an answer right away, I need to think. How about a bite to eat? I just cashed in our food coupons."

Asha thought for a moment—she never refused food, but riding back with a full stomach…

"I'll pass. Your spider's had me queasy all day."

"Hmm? Strange," Ashley said, then guessed, "Do you have arachnophobia?"

"I don't have any phobias! It's just that thing shakes like a ship in a storm."

"Very strange. That shouldn't happen. Maybe something broke, Marvin?"

"Impossible. I made sure the design had a safety margin. Maybe you set the leg commands wrong again, like last time?"

"Or maybe you cast one leg shorter than the others again?" the girl shot back, crossing her arms.

The two bickered for a while, trading past failures, completely forgetting about the food. It seemed they could keep it up forever.

"Ahem. I wouldn't mind eating," I interrupted.

"Oh, right." The girl pulled two dark, dense loaves of bread from her bag.

I touched one. Hard as a brick, with some kind of sawdust and herbs mixed into the dough.

Next on the table landed what looked like a severed rump. Burnt so badly it was clear its owner hadn't had an easy time. The shape was vaguely human, but the coarse, animal-like hair made it obvious it wasn't.

"What's this?" Marvin asked.

"A ham, can't you tell?" the girl snorted.

"No, I mean the meat. Never seen a creature like this before."

"Merlin knows. Maybe a harpy?"

"Doesn't look like it…"

"Wait, you eat monster meat?" Asha asked, pointing at the "ham."

"That's right, it helps develop one's abilities."

"But it tastes absolutely vile!"

"And it's very bad for your health," I added.

"Well, depends how you cook it. Some monsters are actually decent," Marvin shrugged.

"And that's nothing compared to what they serve in the Tower," Ashley said with an embarrassed smile.

"The townsfolk have it even worse. They get meat-and-bone mash as a food additive, ha," Marvin added.

"Research shows it doesn't even affect life expectancy! Just like peasants—they live to about forty or forty-five," Ashley continued.

"But it increases the chance of conceiving and giving birth to a younger apprentice by five percent," Marvin finished for her.

I glanced between the two of them. Perfect sync.

"As an alchemist, I'll say it's complete nonsense. Sure, someone with a Gift might not notice, but additives like this will inevitably kill ordinary people—slowly, maybe, but still. It's a poison that will accumulate with every meal."

"Maybe so, but it doesn't matter. There will always be new townsfolk. Five percent is a lot: that lets us increase our numbers. The Commonwealth doesn't feed all the peasants like this only because it can't, not because it doesn't want to. Here, all the chimera lab waste gets put to use. As for this particular piece, I'm certain it came from the training grounds of the battle mages."

"Yeah, fire mages at that," the man clarified, pointing to the burn marks.

"I see," I said curtly, not letting it show that the "it doesn't matter" and "there will always be new ones" rubbed me the wrong way.

"If you don't like the meat, have some bread. It's got scraps from the Academy's alchemical gardens."

"And even shavings from a dead wisdom tree."

"No, thanks. I've completely lost my appetite," I declined politely, pushing the loaf away.

Bread, even you have betrayed me! I'd expected a lot of things, but I didn't think the Commonwealth had a problem with normal food.

"You don't happen to have a normal carriage? With horses?" Asha asked, clearly having come to the same conclusion but a very different takeaway, that we should get moving and find food.

Ashley shook her head.
"No living creatures are allowed to be harnessed on Academy grounds. Not even for Archmagi."

"What about golem horses?" I asked, recalling Nala's grumbling.

"Horses made as golems? They don't exist."

"They exist, actually," Marvin corrected his wife, and she raised a questioning brow.

"Never heard of them."

"That's because they were very rare and used only about eight years ago. They made literally two units, but only one survived. The other fell into the sea off a cliff along with the girl driving it, and her disfigured body was found a week later."

"Ugh, Marvin, why would you say that over a meal?" Ashley protested, slicing a piece of bread with a knife.

"Sorry…" he apologized, and I only just noticed that when speaking with his wife, he seemed perfectly normal.

"Anyway, the horses had two problems: they were fast and… uncontrollable. A living horse handles far better, but a stone or iron horse… And this was just a trial batch, given not to just anyone, but to the Department of Rare Gifts. You know, to light mages, dark mages, that sort, non-elementalists, basically. There were so few of them that pairing them up was always a mess, and they needed fast transport. By the way, we originally built the spider for them too. The idea was that the number of legs would help it maneuver. I'm still working on the optimal configuration. We did the casting, but…" The man gave Asha a reproachful look, and she just waved it off.

"So you made the frame?" I extracted the key point.

"Well…"

"Marvin, show them," the woman prompted.

"All right… only because you're asking."

He picked up a small piece and began slowly heating it. Minute by minute, its color changed until he started rolling it between his fingers like clay. The metal had become amorphous, pliable. He was shaping it into whatever he wanted with his bare hands.

"Amusing. A fire mage trying to be a metal mage," Asha commented.

"Shh, don't distract him. It's hard to keep the concentration."

"That's enough," he concluded, setting the cooled piece back in place. "They get the idea."

"Ha! I can do better," Asha declared confidently, grabbing the same piece.

A couple of seconds later, the molten metal seeped through her hands and dripped onto the wooden floor. Smoke filled the room instantly. The wood caught fire in a flash.

"Ow, ow! I'll fix it!" she promised, blasting it with frost.

The fire really did go out, but the room instantly became a freezer. She hadn't held back, and everyone's teeth started chattering from the unbearable cold.

"Oh, I'll fix that too."

"DON'T!" the couple shouted in unison, clearly expecting her to turn the place into an inferno.

I stepped over to her and gave her a sympathetic pat on the chest, restoring the erased inscription on her medal to its rightful place.

"Better let me warm the building back up, slowly," Marvin offered, his breath steaming.

"Let's head to the storeroom while he does that in peace," Ashley said, leading us through a door into the depths of the building.

The storeroom, true to its name, was a proper warehouse: piles of spare parts, metal ingots, components, and scrap. In the middle, on a relatively clean patch of floor, stood a half-disassembled golem made of bluish crystalline material.

"So Marvin makes the frame. And you?"

"Everything else," she nodded. "Everything that makes those chunks of metal move, from magic circles to control tuning. Over there, by the way, is my second big project. It'll be the boss for the tournament's winner. But don't think it'll just be a golem, I'm trying to make it smarter."

"A smarter golem?" I asked, a bad feeling stirring in my gut. And no, it had nothing to do with a robot uprising.

"Yes. Golem handlers take huge risks in battle because they can't control their golems from a distance. Without control, golems lose much of their effectiveness, they act clumsily and stupidly. I'm trying to make them more complex, smarter, so people don't have to risk themselves so much, and broad commands will be enough. The main problem was insufficient feedback. Right now, golems act on a preset algorithm and relate it poorly to the actual situation. But if you give a golem senses so it can understand the battlefield itself and choose tactics freely…"

A knot twisted in my stomach. Very bad news: right now, a golem needs a nearby mage to work properly, and the handler is easy to kill with gunfire. But if there's no handler… dealing with autonomous tanks would be a nightmare. Infantry without artillery wouldn't stand a chance. I had to recruit her at any cost. And if that failed, remove her.

Hmm. By the way...

"Ambitious. And how do the handlers feel about this?"

"Uh, what?"

"Well, essentially, they'd become unnecessary. If I were in their shoes, I'd try to hinder such developments—they'd be a blow to their status."

"Hm…" The girl thought for a moment.

"Ash, you haven't told anyone what you're working on, have you?" Marvin called from the next room.

"Well, when I asked the rector for permission to improve one of the tournament golems, I did say it was about a new control system. He agreed, though he insisted the old one stay as well."

"That's good. We'll need to talk about this. By the way, I'm done, you can come back."

The room had indeed warmed to a comfortable temperature. Marvin looked tired but had done a fine job—there wasn't a trace of frost left, and not a single scorch mark either! Well, except for the ones left by the pyromancer.

"All right, round two," Asha said, picking up another part from the table.

"Don't waste your time. You need excellent control for this, it's not for you," Marvin said.

The mage girl caught her breath.
"What? You! You're not even Ashiran, and you think you have better control? Ha, even if you dyed your hair red, you wouldn't reach—"

"You'll have plenty of time to train and prove him wrong, preferably right after you learn to bathe in lava. For now—calm down," I cut in before she could go off.

She relented and tossed the part back.

"Yeah, fine. But first, we need to eat something decent. Let's go already," she said as her stomach growled.

"The offer still stands if you change your mind," I told the pair. Marvin shook his head, but the girl nodded.

"Wait. Let me give you a ride. I just need to change, or they won't let me out of the district. One moment."

Ashley went to the storeroom. Marvin leaned closer and whispered.

"She's not going anywhere with you. Don't waste your time."

"Then go with her."

"No."

I shrugged. Stubborn man.

A few minutes later, Ashley returned, dressed in a gray robe. She kissed Marvin goodbye and walked out to the street with us.

Almost all the patrols had dispersed. Only one remained on watch, keeping an eye on us suspicious types. But he did nothing as we passed.

"I'll try to get Marvin to think it over," Ashley said.

I was about to explain the work terms when she quickly added:

"No, no, don't promise mountains of gold yet. Save that for later, once he stops rejecting the idea outright."

"Thanks."

"And thank you for the offer. Marvin's lucky—fire mages are the most privileged in the Commonwealth…" She gave the district a thoughtful look and fell silent.

The wind carried swirls of black smoke.

In silence, we reached the carriage, where the chimerologist was dozing on the driver's seat. Hearing us approach, he immediately stirred.

"She'll take it from here. Want me to get you to work?" I offered.

The mage thought for a moment and shook his head.

"Rest. Better," he said shortly and stepped down.

People are the same everywhere, I thought.

Asha climbed onto the passenger seat with a tragic expression and braced for suffering.

"All good. I don't know why you had trouble," Ashley concluded after inspecting the spider golem, then took the driver's spot.

Surprisingly, the ride was smooth this time.

No jolts at all.