Vol 5, Chapter 13

But we didn't get to see the spider gladiator fights.

As we passed through the corridor, we ran into Nala, who was leading a team of mages. Strangely, there were no servants on this floor, so the mages themselves had to haul some very suspicious crates behind their mistress. The cargo emitted a crackling hiss and scratched audibly at the steel containers from inside.

"All done? I'm afraid I can't accompany you any further: there were more specimens than I expected, so we'll have to split up. But… this fellow will take you where you need to go." Nala pointed to the first mage she saw.

He set the crate down on the stone floor with relief and brushed off gloves smeared in transparent slime.

"Come by again if you have free time, with my lady, of course. I can't let you in alone," the scholar whispered quickly. Seemed he liked that we were good listeners.

We said our goodbyes to the scholar—whose name I never learned, and headed back up the spiral stairs. Our carriage, left unattended, was still there. But now it had a neighbor: what looked like a cargo wagon hitched to two humanoid golems. Inside were neatly stacked vessels, vials, documents, and a couple of piles of crates.

It seemed Nala had turned the chimerologists' place upside down, but that wasn't our business.

"Careful, you oaf!" she barked when one mage nearly dropped a crate. "And, Viscount, I trust you won't delay with my request. I expect good news from you as soon as possible."

I nodded but grew wary. She had mentioned her request openly, even with many mages around. Were they all trusted? Even if so, it was careless. Why?

"Where to?" asked the mage who had taken the driver's seat, removing his gloves.

"I want to meet the one who made that spider," I repeated.

"Steel Tower. Understood," he said emotionlessly and set off.

He didn't speak another word the entire trip.

His driving was just as bad, but slower and more careful, which was somehow worse. Instead of a quick, jarring ride, we got a long, swaying one. Even I began to feel sick, wondering if meeting this so-called inventor was worth it.

But after suffering this long, turning back wasn't an option. So we crept toward our goal.

The carriage emerged from the tunnels onto city streets: streets very different from those near the portal square.

The entire district was coated in rust. Brown houses, brown streets, brown sand on the sides. Even the tower, more pyramid-shaped than tower, had once been steel but was now grimy and rusted like everything else.

A metallic taste on the lips, the sharp smell easily mistaken for fresh blood… and every breeze sent reddish-brown flakes into your face. I didn't envy anyone living here, and rust wasn't the only problem.

The second plague of the district was soot—on the walls, on the roofs, on the faces of passersby. Metalworking can't exist without raw materials.

Near the Pyramid-Tower, hundreds of smokestacks belched soot into the air. Smelters; what else could produce so much?

Smoke swirled and mingled with the sunlit metallic dust spilling from vents in the tower. I even knew why: it was the same dust I often had to shake off my hands after shaping metal. But why let it rust away instead of smelting it down again?

Because of this, part of the city looked like a ghetto, or slums. Though I saw no children or beggars, only the grim faces of workers. Sometimes we passed mages in steel-gray robes, but they looked no different from laborers: tired faces, rust-stained clothes. Normally, low-ranking mages did menial work, but here I saw full-fledged Adepts levitating something massive down the street, like a giant millstone.

In the Kingdom, a mage of that level might become a baronet, or at least a knight with land, serving in elite forces. Certainly more prestigious than hauling cargo in a rundown district.

And these were just the ones I saw outside. Something told me that inside the tower worked mages of even higher rank.

I didn't get to confirm my guess. We didn't even reach the base of the pyramid-tower before being stopped by guards. A few minutes of explanations got us a little further, only for another squad to stop us again, refusing outright to let us through.

The ease with which we wandered around  a secret chimerologist facility had made me far too relaxed. Turned out, without the universal key that was the rector's daughter, no one would let suspicious characters roam freely. A shame.

While we waited for someone from the tower who could hear our request, I studied the ones who had stopped us. Surprisingly, there wasn't a single metal mage in their unit.

Over their multicolored robes, which indicated their element and rank, they wore strange armor—black, as if molten, something glass-like, maybe obsidian, or even plastic? I couldn't touch it to test its strength, but I was certain there wasn't a speck of metal in their armor or weapons. What there was, however, was an abundance of enchantments. In magical sight, they glowed so brightly that I had no doubt—whatever material their gear was made of, after so many enchantments it was easily on par with metal.

The unit's composition also raised questions. Their leader was a fire mage commanding two earth mages, one water, and one air, plus a healer. A mixed squad like this could have used a mounted, fully armored metal mage—but there wasn't one.

My suspicions as to why were only reinforced when a metal mage from the tower approached us. The patrol commander barely stopped himself from spitting as he let the man through.

Dark-gray robes, sunken cheeks, and a thin frame that made the fabric hang on him like on a coat rack. Unusual, and frankly unpleasant, to see a Lesser Mage in such a state.

"Gentlemen… I can call you that, right?" he asked obsequiously, bowing awkwardly.

Meanwhile, the water mage whispered something to his commander, making the man smile smugly. In a moment, he grabbed the mage by the shoulder, pulling him away.

"Not so fast. I've decided the archmage wouldn't approve of these talks of yours…"

"Oh, forgive me, but that can't be… surely we can settle…" The metal mage switched to a whisper.

I caught a few words: sword, surplus, something about a magic stone. The patrol leader was outright extorting a bribe for the right to speak with me, and doing it right in front of me. The audacity!

"Hey, you. Put the man back, now. I wasn't finished with him."

"You give orders at home, scrap heap," the captain sneered, breaking from the negotiation.

What audacity! No pistol on me, but I had something better.

"Asha," I called. In an instant, a man-made sun blazed beside me, its heat searing the skin. A heartbeat later, icy wind swept in, snowflakes spun in the air, and crystals of frost formed on the nearest wall.

Damn it, why show off so much? A single fireball would've been enough.

The squad recoiled, weapons snapping up—spears, swords, even a rapier.

"Cease your unlawful actions at once, or we will be forced to act!" the commander barked, his voice cracking, though he held his ground.

Asha focused, the fireball swelling until it was unbearable to sit beside.

"Ahem," the coachman coughed, then spoke his longest sentence yet. "Lady Nala personally asked me to bring this man to the Steel Tower. Do you intend to interfere?"

Silence.

The fire mage leader gave a curt nod. Weapons slid back into sheaths, spears rested on shoulders.

"We'll resume patrol. But if you keep causing trouble, we… we'll inform the Lady of your actions, that's what! Move out!" he ordered, then murmured to the thin mage, "And… about the sword… you know where to find me."

The man nodded obsequiously, and the squad withdrew quickly.

Apparently, everyone here feared Nala. Strange—she hadn't seemed so intimidating to me.

"Sir… lady," the metal mage bowed again. "The path is clear, but guards are posted at the tower entrance. I doubt they'll let you in. However, if you wait, I'll be bringing out promising candidates for evaluation."

"Evaluation?" I asked, suspecting a misunderstanding.

"Yes! You're here to sign a contract, right? People from the Kingdom rarely come here. Last time was decades ago, but I knew someday…"

"Stop," I cut him off. "You're talking about hiring? What's required for that?"

"Believe me, anyone here will agree to even mildly humane conditions!" he said, waving his hands.

"All right, what about the Academy?"

"Ah, yes. You need permission from an Academy representative, the rector or one of his deputies. They'll examine the candidate, and if they decide the person isn't of great value to the Academy, they'll allow the hire and set a compensation fee. You must also get approval from your ambassador…"

"Good to know, thanks. But for now, I came to speak with one particular person."

"Still, perhaps you could take a look? If you have names in hand, you could negotiate. The Academy's leadership rarely refuses if the requested mages' ranks are reasonable."

"Another time," I declined, not wanting to give false hope. Still, I noted what I might ask Nala for if the need arose.

The mage took a deep breath, making his face look even more haggard.

"All right, what person do you need? I'll try to help you find them."

"I need the one who made this spider."

Something flickered in the mage's eyes. He straightened, stepped back slightly, and crossed his thin arms over his chest.

"Why do you want my daughter?"

"Just to talk," I said amicably, showing empty hands as a gesture of peace.

The mage hesitated, speaking uncertainly.

"Um… she hasn't done anything wrong, has she?"

"Nothing. I just want to ask her about this device, that's all. She's not in any danger."

Silence fell while the mage thought tensely, and Asha muttered curses under her breath. She had been looking forward to intimidating whoever had made her spend half the day fighting nausea, and now she had to accept that this person would walk away neither beaten nor singed. A pity!

"All right, Ashley's in the workshop with her friend. It's near the foundries. Just don't make promises you don't intend to keep; she's quite comfortable here, understand?"

"I swear."

"I'd take you there, but I need to get back to my shift. Will you take them? The workshop's by the main foundry entrance, on the left, down the alley."

"Foundries, I'll take them," the coachman replied tersely, as if replenishing his word count after his previous speech.

The mage bowed and hurried back to the tower. The coachman gripped the control handle, but Asha panicked and jumped out of the carriage.

"No, no, no! Not a chance! I'm done! I'll walk."

I looked up. Judging by the pillars of smoke, it really wasn't far.

"Drive ahead, we'll walk behind you," I ordered the coachman, dismounting to follow the girl.

The empty carriage rolled slowly down the street as we followed, each step kicking up clouds of reddish dust. Damn, I'd meant to ask the mage why there was so much rust here… oh well.

"Now people will say we don't know how to use a carriage," I joked as we walked.

"Let them, idiots," Asha said, shaking her fist at passersby, sending them hurrying away. A man approaching us pretended to suddenly remember he'd left an iron on at home, turned around, and left.

Sighing, I flicked Asha on the forehead.

"Hey, what was that for?"

"Not for that," I lied, about fifty percent. "When you showed the patrol the fireball, why the hell did you start freezing everything too?"

"Well, it's cool, right? Fire on one side, ice on the other… like a real archmage!"

I flicked her forehead again.

"Hey, cut it out!" she huffed, covering her head with her hands.

"You should have started with just the fireball. Then, if they kept pushing, add the ice."

"Because it looks cooler that way?"

"Because then they'd think you had more to show if they kept acting up. Don't put all your cards on the table at once."

"All right, all right, I get it," she said airily.

She clearly didn't get it. I really should make a derringer and hide it in my boot, just in case.

We walked in silence for ten minutes, trailing the shaky carriage and what looked like a drunken mechanical spider that couldn't walk in a straight line, constantly tangling its legs and swaying. Still, to the coachman's credit, at pedestrian speed he kept it steadier.

I looked around at the houses, where everyday life bustled: someone cooking, someone sweeping their porch, forcing us to cough as dust clouds billowed up. The houses looked worn but still better than the slums in the Kingdom's capital. Still, it bothered me that I hadn't seen a single child the whole time. This didn't feel like a living city.

The closer we got to the foundries, the more soot covered the walls, and the sharp scent of iron gave way to the acrid stench of smoke.

"So, still want to live in the Commonwealth?" I teased.

She frowned.

"Well, if the blast furnaces here are bigger, I might put up with the dust."

"Unlikely, but… why don't we take a look?" I suggested, as we neared the foundry entrance, hot, dry air wafting out.

It would be interesting to compare, and to see how steel production was done here. Maybe I could steal a few good ideas.

"Stop right there! No entry without a pass!" A squad burst out, blocking the main entrance.

Without Lady Nala, we were politely but firmly redirected toward the alley with the workshop, and even escorted by a few guards to make sure we didn't "get lost."

I mentally praised their vigilance and made a note to return. After all, if they were hiding something, it had to be interesting, right?