The Wrong Librarian (Part 1)

This story takes place just over a century and a half before the events of Into the Labyrinth. It was written using the I Ching, like Phillip K. Dick used the I Ching to write The Man in the High Castle. I meant to have the whole thing ready this month, but life's been kicking my ass- COVID-19 is back in Vietnam, and so I'm back to sheltering in place. Not to mention, the world's just a little overwhelming at the moment. This story's been kicking my butt, too- if I'm going to split a story in two, I usually want each part to be longer than this.

In better news, however, The Lost City of Ithos (Mage Errant 4) is coming out August 15th!

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Calrin was planning to spend his day cataloging old maps when the lich Keayda sent for him. 

Calrin adored maps. They were one of the most useful insights into history you could get your hands on. Often, they told far more about the times they were drafted in than actual first-hand accounts did, at least if you knew how to read them. And Calrin certainly did.

Take this map of northeastern Ithos, for instance. It was drawn on a thick sheet of vellum— parchment made of treated calfskin, rather than another sort of animal skin. That right there told you something important. Vellum was one of the most valued writing surfaces in the times before paper became more widely available, so whoever this map was made for was important. Not of paramount importance— dragon-skin parchment was even rarer and more valuable. But, given that dragons tended to look poorly on their young being killed for writing materials, it hadn’t seen widespread use since the days of the Ithonian Empire.

This map was from the days of the Ithonian Empire, however, so dragon-skin parchment had indeed been in use at the time. This map had been made for someone important, but likely not at the top of the heap. If you looked closely, however, you could see the telltale signs that this was a palimpsest— that something else had once been drawn atop the vellum. Once it was no longer needed, the top layer had been painstakingly scraped away, either with knife or spell, and the map had been drawn on the now-thinner vellum. That further lowered the expected social rank, wealth, and power of the map’s owner.

If this had been a map made for a military officer, it would have likely labeled fortresses, the lairs of great powers, and the like, but those were all missing. Instead, it focused on roads, especially between major cities. 

That latter was especially important to Calrin. While surprisingly few of the cities on the map had vanished or been destroyed over the centuries, and not many new ones had been built, the relative importance of the cities in Northeastern Ithos had changed wildly over the intervening times. Tsarnassus, today the most powerful nation of the region, had been a pastoral backwater at the time, and it showed in the map. 

Eddias, meanwhile, had been the wealthiest province of the Ithonian Empire in the region, and it had far more marked roads and cities on the map. You wouldn’t find Eddias on a map at all today. The fall of the Ithonian Empire had doomed it to a long, slow death of economic stagnation. The capital city of Eddias, from which the former province got its name, was now a small farming community, the stones of its houses built from the dismantled ruins of its former glory.

It was, almost certainly, the map of a moderately successful traveling merchant, or one of many maps owned by a mercantile collective.

Most importantly— at least to Calrin— were the cartographic errors present in the map.

Calrin adored cartographic errors. They could be so very telling. Some were deliberate— it was a violation of Ithonian law for a non-military maps to include the exact locations of certain types of garrisons and fortresses, so when they were included on maps, they were always subtly shifted or misplaced. Other errors were simply due to the cruder surveying methods used at the time. Others still had not been errors at the time they were drawn, but became errors over time as rivers shifted and moved, or battles between the great powers altered the landscape. You could learn so very much from a map’s errors.

If you gave Calrin the chance, he could spend hours and hours lecturing you on what the map told him. The provenance of the spellforms engraved around its edges to prevent wear and tear. The particular quirks of the ink used.

Keayda’s summons, however, meant he wouldn’t have time for his maps today.

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The superstitious and uneducated often thought of liches as ambulatory corpses, or skeletons somehow moving despite their lack of muscles. 

That was, thankfully for Calrin’s weak stomach, not the case. 

Keayda had supposedly been naga once, centuries ago. The naga, like their cousins the gorgons, were known as the scalekin, and their legends claimed that someone— usually the dragons— had transformed their ancestors from humans into part-snake creatures. Keayda was old enough that he might possibly know the answers to that, but no-one had found a truth valuable enough to pay for that answer yet. 

Keayda was, quite possibly, the oldest lich on the continent. Not that it meant very much— liches had been rare in ancient times, and most of them had been destroyed by the Ithonian Empire. Keayda, however, had survived. For a lich, he had shockingly little interest in world affairs, and the stone lich’s demesne took the form of a massive library carved into a small mountain. 

Other than the library part, that wasn’t too unusual— stone liches were the most common sort, and converting a mountain into a demesne was one of the easiest ways to do it. 

Keayda’s defenses were impressive enough compared to most great powers, but were actually on the weak side for a lich. His survival during the years of the Ithonian Empire occurred thanks to his library, the greatest repository of information on the continent. Or, it had been— it was a thorn in Keayda’s side that the library at Skyhold had, apparently, grown beyond his own over the last couple of centuries. Before then, however, he’d held endless information desired by the Ithonian Empire, so they’d come willingly to bargain— especially since Keayda made it clear he’d destroy the entire library if he felt threatened. 

Keayda was always open to barter his knowledge, but it was rare he’d accept any coin other than more knowledge. 

Calrin had only met Keayda in person twice before, despite working in his library for over a decade. Or, rather, he’d only met Keayda’s avatar in person twice before. Like all liches, Keayda was his demesne— there was no significant difference between the lich and his library. His avatar could no more leave his demesne than a person’s liver could leave their body— it would turn into inanimate stone as soon as it left the bounds of the demesne, though said bounds could slowly grow over time.

Of course, removing a lich’s avatar from their demesne would be much less destructive to the lich than removing the liver from a person. A lich could always construct a new avatar.

Keayda’s avatar was a statue of a naga, looking, so far as anyone knew, much the same as he had in life, who knew how many centuries in the past. 

And, for some inexplicable reason, he’d summoned Calrin to his office.

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“There are a hundred and four lots in the auction,” Keayda said. “Nineteen of them are texts. Eleven of those texts are absent from my library. You will acquire as many of them as you can within the operation’s budget.”

The stone lich’s voice, disconcertingly, did not come from Keayda’s avatar, but from the walls and floor of his office.

“You don’t need an extraction team to attend an auction,” one of the other mages that had been summoned along with Calrin said. 

Sala Vie. She was a tree mage who specialized in controlling and growing roots, and could work at impressive ranges for a tree mage. It was one of the better kept secrets of Keayda’s library that she was his go-to vaultbreaker. She was patient, methodical, and inevitably successful.

The other mage shifted in her seat. Irilin Danae, also known the Kettle. Irilin was a wind mage with unusual talents— she specialized in high-altitude flights, far above the ranges that other mages, or even dragons, could reach. She wasn’t especially fast, but she didn’t need to be— no one else could get high enough to catch her or her passengers. To keep her and any passengers alive at those high altitudes, she somehow generated a sphere of warm, pressurized air at high altitudes— the ‘kettle’ she was known for. Well, that, or possibly her notorious temper. However she did it, Calrin doubted it was with a simple wind affinity, but even his brother didn’t know. Regardless, she was Keayda’s main getaway mage.

“You want us to steal something,” the third mage said.

Mendis Ka. They were a quietly confident mage, with some sort of variant water affinity that let them scry both sound and light through water. They had to imbue the water in person, but the effect lasted for hours, and they could communicate through it as well.

Mendis pointed at each of them in turn. “Me for communications, Irilin for escape, Sala for vault breaking, and Hendris in case things go wrong.” 

Calrin winced. He knew it.

“I’m not…” he started to say.

“It’s a board game,” Keayda said. “It’s not magical, nor made of precious materials. It hasn’t even been properly appraised yet, and is still waiting in storage for a future auction. A clerk in my debt tipped me off to its presence.”

“What do you want a board game for?” Irilin asked.

“It is only in the auction house’s warehouse for appraisal due to the fact that it was found in a labyrinth,” Keayda said, tapping his fingers on his stone desk, the mouth of his stone avatar still unmoving. “I was tipped off to it by a clerk in the auction house who owes me a debt of knowledge. As for why I want it… it’s not a game that the clerk has ever seen before, and I suspect it to be from another world entirely. There is writing on it in an unknown language that the clerk suspects to be the instructions, but even if I cannot translate it, this is a worthy prize on its own accord.”

Calrin cleared his throat, but nobody noticed. If he actually had been Hendris, he definitely could have caught their attention— Hendris could snag anyone’s attention with ease. 

“So why don’t you just bid for it when it comes up to auction?” Mendis asked. “You don’t usually send extraction teams for something like this.” 

Keayda scowled. “Unfortunately, there are a large number of collectors who would jump at a chance to own this game, and many of them have far deeper pockets than I.”

For as famous, ancient, and powerful of a lich as Keayda was, he was hardly the wealthiest of the great powers. Many of his librarians wore ratty, years-old robes, and their diets were simple but filling. What little income Keayda gained from the rare times he sold knowledge for coin largely went towards maintaining the library.

“I’m not Hendris,” Calrin said, raising his voice this time.

Everyone turned to look at him.

“I’m well aware,” Keayda said, and turned back to the others.

“I’m not sure I understand,” Sala said.

“You look just like Hendris to me,” Irilin said.

“I’m, uh, his brother. Twin, actually,” Calrin said, shrinking back in his seat a little. “Hendris is on a mission right now.”

“Obviously,” Keayda said. “I sent him on it.”

“Why would you possibly want me instead?” Calrin asked.

“Because,” Keayda said. “If mages your brother has worked with before can’t tell you’re not the fabled Coin Mage, then no one else will be able to tell either.”

“Hendris never mentioned a brother,” Mendis said doubtfully.

“I seem to recall him saying something about a brother once or twice,” Irillin said. “What kind of affinities do you have, not-Hendris?” 

“My name’s Calrin,” he said. “And, uh… I don’t have any. My mind’s eye is blind.”

Everyone stared at him for a second, and Calrin sunk back farther into his chair.

After that, he seriously wondered if anyone would notice if he slipped out of the room. The other three mages were protesting so loudly that he almost doubted whether the stone lich would notice.

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Having a blind mind’s eye wasn’t that big of a deal for most people. Very few people trained as mages, or learned any magic beyond basic cantrips. It was a moderate inconvenience at most, especially if you lived in a region with low aether density, where people already used less magic. It was an inconvenience at most.

Most mind-blind people, however, weren’t posing as one of the most dangerous battle mages alive.

“So we’ve got to bluff our way out of any confrontations,” Irilin growled, as the four of them strode through the library towards the balcony they’d be taking off from. “Isn’t that just bloody wonderful.”

“Most of our missions don’t end up in combat,” Sala said. She glanced at Calrin, and for a moment his heart rose, thinking he might have an ally on the team. Then she looked away from him and continued, and his heart sank. “I’m not happy with this nonsense either, but we’ll just need to be extra cautious.”

Mendis chuckled. It wasn’t the sort of laugh that meant someone actually found humor in a situation- it was a resentful, bitter laugh. “We’ve got ourselves a counterfeit coin mage, don’t we?”

Calrin felt a bit of his own resentment well up at that miserable old joke— everyone always thought they were just so very clever and original for thinking of it. 

For the ten thousandth time, Calrin wished he had anyone but Hendris for a brother. It wasn’t that Hendris was a particularly bad brother, really. He was never deliberately cruel, he just… tended to forget about Calrin. Most people did, honestly. When one brother could send coins straight through several feet of solid stone, talents for cartography and identifying ancient manuscripts tended to fall by the wayside.

Over the years, Calrin had decided that it was just simpler to avoid most people altogether. He’d grown sick of people only ever wanting to talk to him about his twin, prying to try and find out Hendris’ magical secrets.

As bitter as he was towards his brother, he’d never seriously considered revealing said secrets. Knowing another mage’s exact affinities could be an important advantage in a fight, and he did still love his brother, and didn’t want anything bad to happen to him.

Not, of course, that anyone had ever even come close to guessing Hendris’ affinities. 

There wasn’t any such thing as a coin mage, of course. Money was merely a story that society agreed to abide by. Nor did Hendris have a half-dozen separate affinities corresponding to the metals used for various coins.

Calrin had even had a couple people guess that Hendris had a metal affinity, which was absurd. General metal affinities were usually so weak as to be nigh-useless— when it came to relative affinity strength, specificity was power. And Hendris was anything but weak— he could fire coins straight through enchanted armor with little difficulty.

No, Hendris was an alloy mage. His affinity let him control, reinforce, and alter metal alloys, and there were few more heavily alloyed metals than coins, for all most cities absurdly claimed their coins were pure. He could also manipulate the metal of enemy swords and armor. It made him terrifyingly effective, not least because he could fire his coins farther than most lightning mages could strike foes.

Calrin lurked at the back of the group as they prepared to leave for Tsarnassus, hoping the others would just ignore him, instead of blaming him. 

He didn’t hold much hope, though. 

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The others ignored him almost the entire way to Tsarnassus, save for a few snide comments. They’d not violate Keayda’s orders and leave him behind, but Irillin kept him floating as far from the rest of them as she could, in the relatively small constrains of her kettle.

Calrin spent a while theorizing about her affinities— while wind was the most common affinity for fliers, he suspected it was complemented with something more exotic. Not force or gravity, the other two most common flight affinities— those combinations were well known and understood. No, Calrin suspected it was something far stranger, like pressure or viscosity. Viscosity was generally considered an alchemist’s affinity, and could only affect small quantities of liquid, but perhaps Irillin had created a thin membrane around them that kept them warm and their air dense enough to breathe at this altitude. Pressure affinities, meanwhile, were only rumored to exist, but were suspected to be a close cousin of sound affinities. Or perhaps it was one of those strange affinities that only affected a part of air.

While Calrin had no chance of ever learning magic himself, he certainly had an interest in rare affinities, given his brother’s unusual talents.

They’d left late in the evening. Calrin had never been afraid of heights, but he’d definitely been nervous about flying for the first time. His fear had quickly turned to wonder as he saw the land from above. He almost entirely forgot about being ignored by the others, and simply reveled in mountains and rivers slipping by far below.

As night fell, Calrin watched the stars emerge and the moon rise, brighter than he’d ever seen them before. Whatever unpleasantness this trip brought, he’d always cherish these memories.

He didn’t know when he fell asleep, but he awoke as they began descending towards the city of Lemannen, second largest city in Tsarnassus, after Tsarnassus itself. Dawn was breaking over the city’s thousand towers, bathing them in heliotrope light. The grasses of the Lemannen floodplains bobbed gently in the morning breeze, the individual blades reaching as much as three times the height of a man.

They landed on one of the countless bridges connecting the towers. This one was a delicate-looking wrought-iron mesh, connecting a sturdy sandstone tower and a graceful marble tower. The morning crowds had already started bustling about the bridges, and the curious wagons of Tsarnassus rumbled in the streets below. 

Calrin followed the others into the sandstone tower, down several floors, across a covered wooden bridge, and into a moss-covered granite tower. The moss had been artfully grown into flowing, looping designs, almost reminiscent of spellforms. Looking up, Calrin could see what appeared to be hanging gardens atop the tower roof.

This tower’s upper floors were, apparently, an inn frequently used by traveling scholars. Its prices were surprisingly cheap for how nice it was, but then, it was located far from the great market-towers, the dragon roosts, or the great fortress aviary where one of Tsarnassus’ gryphon rider divisions were based.

Calrin was, apparently, the only one who had gotten any sleep on the flight, so while the others settled into their rooms to rest, he decided to do a bit of exploring.

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The view from the hanging gardens atop the tower was, of course, spectacular. Calrin doubted there were many unspectacular views in the whole city. 

Lemannen was, at first glance, vastly different than any other Tsarnassan city. Rather than the great family compounds that dominated most of the countryside, where generations of extended family all lived together, children playing in the central courtyards of their compound, Lemannen was a city built entirely of towers. Almost all of the life of the city happened off the ground, with many residents going weeks or months in between touching the ground.

It wasn’t merely some odd affectation of the city, however. It was an essential adaptation to the Lemmanen floodplain.

The Redstone River ran right alongside Lemannen. Though the Redstone was dwarfed by some of the great rivers of the south, it had no rival in Northeastern Ithos. It had tributaries draining into it from the Skyreach Range, from the great Alikean volcanic ranges, and from the Green Mountains north of Alikea and Tsarnassus, where Keayda’s library was found. During the spring and early summer, the Redstone flooded. Lemmanen was just east of a series of deep canyons, and when the flooding Redstone exited them, it spread out across the Lemmanen plain, almost entirely submerging the deep grasses.

The walls of the city were built to keep the predators of the grasslands out— both those that prowled in the dry season and those that swam in the submerged season— but they were not built to keep the water out. The streets of the city flooded each spring for months, and the distinctive wagons of the city became barges to be poled along the streets. Every year, there was a great oxen drive before the floods, taking the livestock of the city to the hills nearby, where they’d graze until the flooding ended. 

In truth, Lemannen was more like the rest of Tsarnassus than one might expect. Families still clustered together as they might elsewhere, but would take up a floor or two in one of the towers instead of a compound. A few of the wealthiest and most powerful families of the city even had their own towers. 

Calrin and Hendris had grown up in rural Tsarnassus, but Calrin had never been to Lemannen before. He wished he could have arrived during the wet season— he would have loved to see the city in full flood. He did, however, correspond regularly with several scholars at Lemannen’s excellent university. 

He furrowed his brow at that. Actually, given that he was in Lemannen, there was no reason not to seek out the towers that made up the university. 

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