CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
※ AUGUSTA ※
Approaching Ganir’s chambers, Augusta knocked decisively on his door. The old man had been avoiding her for the past couple of days, even going so far as to ignore her Contact messages, and she wasn’t about to allow this.
By the time the door swung open, Augusta’s temper was reaching a boiling point. Taking a few deep breaths to calm herself, she entered Ganir’s chambers.
“How are you, my child?” Ganir greeted her calmly. He was sitting behind his desk, apparently looking over some scrolls prior to her arrival.
“You said you would notify me when your men had some information,” she said bluntly. “It has now been several days, and I haven’t heard anything from you. Where do we stand as far as locating this creature? If your spies have been unable to find it, then I’m going to have no choice but to speak about this at the upcoming Council meeting—the one that’s happening on Thursday.”
Ganir sighed. “Augusta, you need to have patience. We can’t act in haste—”
“No, we need to act in haste,” she interrupted. “We need to contain this situation before it gets completely out of control. Did you, or did you not, learn anything thus far?”
He hesitated for a moment, then inclined his head. “Yes,” he said. “There is something that I want to show you.”
“Show me?”
The old man gestured toward a Life Capture droplet sitting in a jar. “It’s from one of my observers in Kelvin’s territory,” he said softly. “Blaise’s creation has been spotted there, at the market in Neumanngrad.”
Augusta’s pulse jumped in excitement. “Did your observer capture it?”
“No,” Ganir said. “That was not his task.”
“All right,” Augusta said, “so what happened? How was he able to find the thing?”
“You better see for yourself.” Ganir picked up the droplet and handed it to her. “Keep in mind, this is from a man who is a sorcerer himself.”
Augusta took the droplet and was about to bring it to her mouth when Ganir held up his hand.
“Wait,” he said. “Before you do that, I want you to start a new recording.” He pointed toward the Sphere sitting on his desk.
“What? Why?” Augusta gave him a confused look.
“I want to keep that Life Capture for more study,” he explained. “By you recording yourself using the Life Capture droplet, I will not lose the information that this droplet contains. Instead, I will get a new droplet that will include a few moments before you took the original droplet and a few moments after, as well as a recording of the original.”
Augusta stared at him in shock and amazement. Why hadn’t she thought of this before? The idea was genius in its simplicity. It was widely believed that the droplets were consumable—gone forever once used. But now it seemed like there was a way to use them over and over again. Why had the old man kept this to himself?
The implications were staggering. If nothing else, it could change the way sorcery was taught. All one needed to do was teach a group of students once and have them record the class via Life Captures. Then the next class could be given those droplets, and their experiences would also be recorded—and so on. This would significantly cut the time each experienced sorcerer had to spend tutoring apprentices—a duty that Augusta particularly disliked.
Of course, now that she thought about it, it was not that surprising Ganir had hoarded this knowledge. Augusta had always suspected the old sorcerer of keeping secrets when it came to some of his discoveries; he took joy in possessing knowledge that no one else had.
Realizing that she was standing there in silence, Augusta approached the Sphere and pricked her finger on a needle lying on the desk. Then she pressed that finger to the magical object and put the droplet she was holding into her mouth.
* * *
Ganir reached for the droplet Vik had brought to him. Carrying it to his mouth, he closed his eyes, letting the droplet consume him.
* * *
Vik was sitting on the roof of a building overlooking the market. The weather was nice, and he was quite content. His only gripe was a large wooden splinter that had gotten stuck in his finger when he was climbing up there.
He could see the whole market from this vantage point, and he made himself comfortable, knowing he was likely in for another boring shift. His job in this territory was to observe public gatherings, which usually meant sitting for several hours and watching people shop. As usual, he was Life-Capturing the experience as Ganir ordered him to do, although Vik honestly didn’t see the point in doing that. Nothing of interest ever happened in this region.
He had an Interpreter Stone and cards with spells written on them, ready to be cast. One particularly useful spell enabled him to enhance his vision, making his job a little bit more bearable. There was nothing quite like watching a woman changing in her bedroom, secure in the knowledge that nobody could see her from the street.
Ganir had supplied Vik with many cards that had the intricate code for the spell. Vik was a lousy coder, and he had to take Ganir’s word for it when the old man assured him that the vision enhancement spell was actually an easy one.
His hearing was also sharpened, and the sound of a young woman’s scream was what first alerted him to the chase happening in the market below. Another thief, he thought lazily. Still, Vik watched the running woman and her pursuer, since he had nothing better to do.
His interest was piqued further when he saw an attractive young woman in the crowd following the usual chase. That she looked like the description of the target barely registered at this point. All they knew of the target was that it was a young maiden with blue eyes and long, wavy blond hair. She was also supposedly very pretty. The woman below definitely fit the description, but so did hundreds of others that Vik had seen in passing—and even a few that he had watched surreptitiously through the windows.
Once the thief was captured, Vik continued to observe the scene. It was certainly more entertaining than watching some old women haggling with the merchants.
He heard Davish speak and was amused at the overseer’s mercy. A poor, starving woman with her right hand chopped off would die just as surely as if she were beheaded—except her death would now be slower and more painful.
Like the rest of the crowd, he watched the girl’s mutilation with a mix of pity and gruesome curiosity.
And then he suddenly heard the Shriek. His ears felt like they exploded.
His head ringing, Vik realized that someone had used a powerful spell designed to deafen and psychologically control a rioting mob—a spell he had learned about but had never seen used in real life. This version in particular seemed more potent than anything Vik had read about. If it weren’t for the defensive shield spell Ganir insisted they all use while on duty, the Shriek would’ve been the last thing Vik heard. As it was, he was in agony. The unprotected people in the square below were falling to their knees, bleeding from their ears.
Only one person remained standing—the young woman Vik had noticed earlier. Dazed, he watched as the beautiful girl walked toward the execution platform and put her arms around the thief huddling in a bloody ball on the ground.
And then Vik felt it—a sense of peace and warmth unlike anything he had ever experienced before. It was beauty, it was love, it was bliss . . . it was indescribable. The wave seemed to emanate from the center of the square, where the two women stood hugging.
A spell, he realized dazedly. He was feeling the effects of some spell—a spell strong enough to penetrate his magical defenses.
His finger tingled, and he looked down, watching as the splinter slowly came out of his flesh and the wound healed itself, all traces of the injury disappearing without a trace. Even his head, which had been pounding just moments earlier from the Shriek, felt completely normal.
On the ground, he could see the crowd still on their knees, staring at the young sorceress with rapture on their faces. Had they felt it too, the euphoria he’d just experienced?
And then he knew that they had—because when the beautiful girl stepped away from the thief, the peasant woman’s hand was whole again. Whatever spell the young sorceress had used, it had been so potent that it had spilled over to the spectators, healing even Vik’s minor wound. “What kind of sorcery is this?” he wondered in terrified awe.
Vik now knew why Ganir had dispatched so many of his men to find this girl. As the sorceress touched Davish, Vik pricked his finger and touched the Life Capture Sphere he was carrying with him.
* * *
His heart racing, Ganir regained his senses. For a brief moment, he wondered if he would ever get used to the disorienting effects of his invention, and then his mind turned to what he had just witnessed.
“What had the boy done?” he thought darkly, pricking his finger and touching the Life Capture Sphere.
* * *
Augusta came back to herself with a gasp. Quickly pricking her finger, she touched the Life Capture Sphere on the table in front of her. The last thing she wanted was to expose her private thoughts to the person who would use this droplet next, as Ganir had just done. It was bad enough that there would still be a moment of her feelings captured for anyone to see—a moment of overwhelming horror and disgust.
Her fears had come true: the thing had unnatural powers.
“What of Davish?” she asked Ganir, trying to remain calm. “In the droplet, the creature was reaching for him.”
The Council Leader hesitated for a moment. “He’s not . . . exactly himself after meeting her, according to Vik.”
“What do you mean?” Augusta gave him a questioning look.
“How much do you know about Davish?”
She frowned. “Not much. I know he’s Kelvin’s overseer and supposedly not much better than our esteemed colleague.”
Kelvin was her least favorite member of the Sorcerer Council. His mistreatment of his people was legendary. Several years ago, Blaise had even petitioned for Kelvin to get kicked off the Council and have his holdings confiscated, but, of course, no one had dared to implement such a precedent against a fellow sorcerer. Instead, Kelvin ended up giving control of his lands to Davish—who turned out to be a mirror image of his master when it came to the treatment of peasants.
Ganir nodded, an expression of disgust appearing on his face. “That’s an understatement. Davish’s reputation has traveled far and wide. That atrocity they call the Coliseum was originally Davish’s idea—”
“What happened to him?” Augusta interrupted.
“Well, apparently after the encounter you just saw, Davish has already begun to change many policies in the territory. He has initiated an aid effort for the families most affected by the drought, and there are rumors that he may close or change the Coliseum games after the upcoming events.” Ganir’s eyes gleamed. “In short, Davish is a changed man. Literally.”
Augusta’s stomach twisted unpleasantly. “The creature changed him? Just like that? How do you even change someone?”
“Well, theoretically, there are ways—”
Augusta stared at him. “You can do this, too?”
“No.” Ganir shook his head. “I wish I could, but I can’t. At most, I could control a commoner’s mind for a short period of time. The mathematics and the complexity of deep fundamental change are beyond human capabilities.”
Beyond human capabilities? “Doesn’t this terrify you?” Augusta asked, sickened by the thought of this thing having such power.
“Probably not as much as it terrifies you,” Ganir said, watching her with his pale gaze, “but yes, the power to make someone lose their essence, their personhood, is a dangerous power indeed. Especially if it is abused.”
“So what are we going to do?”
“I am going to dispatch the Sorcerer Guard,” Ganir said. “They will bring her here. You saw how the defenses protected my observer from the full power of her spells. I will equip the Guard with even better defenses.”
“You are asking them to bring it here alive? You would risk their lives and ours just so that you could study this creature?” Augusta could hear her voice rising in angry disbelief. “Are you insane? It needs to be destroyed!”
“No,” Ganir said implacably. “Not yet. If nothing else, Blaise would never forgive us if we destroy her without just cause.”
“What does it matter? He hates us anyway,” Augusta said bitterly. And turning, she left Ganir’s chambers before she said something she would later regret.