Ecdysis

Chapter 98. The Welcoming Committee (Part 1)

“What do you think?”

I put aside a half-finished pitcher of honeyed wine and blinked. “That isn’t mine. The Bragge’s trinket, I assume?”

Albin nodded. “It is. Do you know how it works?”

I reached out but my fingers passed through the floating shard. It was an illusory replica, not a real piece, but I could see enough to know what I was looking at. Logic circuits grown in a crystal substrate were common during the First Scattering. Robust and resilient — they were the staple for many ships of that era, designed to survive centuries-long trips across interstellar space. It was no wonder it looked better than my, more recent, scraps. That and the whatever magic done to it. “Judging by what I see? A piece of an odd-looking crystal and a fancy parchmentweight. Bragge was indeed a master of smoke and mirrors.”

Albin frowned at his spellwork and glanced back at me. “And what if I told you that this thing was able to act outside of Flow?”

“That is not a mundane runework on it either, Albin. By now, I know enough to spot the curves of an artefact and this is definitely one.”

“The sounds it was chirping came from within-”

I choked on my wine. “Bullshit. Any beeps it could generate were silenced more than a thousand years ago when the shard broke off from the whole. Unless those runes can revert time-”

“Which they do.”

“Which they do…” I finished the rest of the pitcher in one, long-drawn sip. I was about to call it a chunk of animal flesh, animated by magic but then remembered that arusak-at existed. The shard wasn’t small for its size either. There was plenty of logic circuitry left undisturbed within and even if the original function — the one that even I had no idea what it was — was beyond the magical help, some activity was… imaginable. Especially if it was some logic node beeping in error as its last resort.

I sighed and rubbed my face. “Silly of me not to assume that magic is cheating as usual. Very well, let us assume that Flow brought this hunk to life from beyond its pyre — I still don’t know how it could ‘avoid’ Flow in turn. At least, not with what those circuits are inherently capable of. Does it have some slight randomness baked in? Absolutely — this is a space-grade tech and no one wants to be a predictable, sitting duck in a stable orbit. Nothing serious, just enough to deter someone from making a stupid decision simply because they could do it with ease — and, as such, it is not even close to the unpredictability of a random murk. If that was the case — Bragge would have had just as much success by keeping a murk pet nearby and asking them random numbers once in a while.”

Albin leaned in. “What is it, in the first place?”

“It is a fragment of some logic machine. A very very sophisticated abacus, if you will. What did it do when it was whole? I haven’t the slightest idea. What you showed me is like a fragment of a blade — I do not know whether it came from a sword, a spear, or a kattar. It could’ve been a piece of shears or a kitchen knife too — all I would know is that it was made to cut something. Whatever this shard once was, it is no more, even with magic. A random beep here and there is all that it can be capable of — a morbid twitch of a severed finger that a Kishava child turned into a toy arusak.”

I rapped my fingers on a table in thought. “Do you remember my wreck and my tool that was making incessant noises? Did those beeps have the same effect?”

“That is one of the reasons I dismissed this jade as one of yours specifically. Does that mean that box of chirping metal had a similar but unbroken trinket inside?”

“More like they are similar in essence and that alone should be enough to dismiss any ‘Flow-devoid’ material they are made from or their already quite predictable logic as the sources of your problem. It is possible that there is some unforeseen interaction happening but we literally have no experts at hand that intuitively understand time-reversal runes and atomic-level logic circuitry all at once.” I wasn’t even an expert on the latter — not without Lif and some serious downtime to absorb and process the necessary information. But from what I knew about that time period, they predominantly relied on background radiation as their source of randomness. “Imagine if you will that this shard relies on the twinkle of the stars to tell it when to beep. Does it use the current twinkle? Or the one from thousands of years ago, as dictated by the time reversal runes around it?”

“Flow isn’t blind to the stars, Erf.”

“Since your magic can tell ‘fuck you’ to time itself, I believe you! But I don’t think you brought me here just so we can philosophise on the nature of Flow.”

He sighed. “Two divine families converged on this location as the consequence of this shard’s use. A piece made an unexpected move and landed on an unexpected place, summoning the attention of the chatrang players above. Fortunately for you and your sadaq — the piece I am talking about is no one else but Bragge himself. Meanwhile, your usual shenanigans were swept aside by the wake of his waves. But they are calming down yet the players are still here, pondering the board. And you are still you.”

“I am not going to lunge at Muramat’s neck as soon as I enter the camp.” I snatched a piece of expertly roasted meat from the table and sunk my teeth in. “My priorities right now are meeting my wives, relaxing, and recovering. I will go after Kamshad for their involvement in this matter but I have Roshanak Gulnaz in my sights for that. Who do you think has more to lose? A love-struck master, betrayed by his backstabbing Companion — a story so old and common that there are four popular plays written about it in Samat alone? Or the Matriarch of the House of Offence, who was unable to spot a barbarian spy in the retinue of her son? I wouldn't even mind waiting until I reach Samat either — as long as I have assurances that your sister will back my words, that is.”

Albin chuckled, “Just don’t claim the victory as yours and you would be fine. Have you noticed that my tent resembles Bragge’s ger?”

I blinked. “I had a thought about that once or twice, yes.”

“Bragge built his ger to hide everything happening inside. Combined with that trinket, his strategy had a tremendous impact but it was never going to last. Even Bragge knew it — that was why he needed me captive in the first place. Meanwhile, my tent only prevents the conversations inside from being ‘loud’ on the outside. They can still be overheard but not without effort or bringing it to my attention. It is neither as powerful nor as unique, but that is exactly why Divines do not appear above my head every time the entrance curtain flaps open.

“It is expected, Erf. And expected things rarely draw attention to themselves. Especially if something more important is happening elsewhere. Know how to be expected, Erf, as you enter the divine chatrang. Try not to be an Erf — the piece that constantly changes itself and pieces around it, nor a mere spear either — a weak piece that is often sacrificed to progress the game. Be the daimon that you are already known as, but nothing more.”

“It’s not like I have a wermage-enhancing aura around me. Jargal happened quite a while ago and I already heard plenty from your sister about that incident,” I mumbled.

“I am not talking about the shaman, I am talking about your wife!” Albin wiggled his eyebrows. “Not that long after you were gone, your first wife almost chopped Muramat in half with your tooth-blade and awed his sister into submission with her new spells.”

“Irje!” I yanked myself up from my couch. Lita’af said nothing about her when I asked but that could've been a stalling tactic. “Is she alright? How is her Spark?”

“She is more than fine. Her new spell is the talk of the entire maniple by now. Fortunately for you, most consider it as her Spark breakthrough — an event that strong wermages encounter a handful of times during their lives — or you would’ve ended up with dozens of wer braying for your favour every night from now and till we are back in Emanai. Did you expect her Spark to grow tenfold as well?” Albin shook his head. “Should I consider braying for your favour too, now?”

“No, I was afraid it might erase her Spark outright or send her into a wakeless sleep. The chance was small, but small wasn’t zero.”

I sighed and rubbed my forehead. While recent discoveries during my battles were quite positive about future integration of living-tech with wermages and the trimmer was simple enough to establish basic connections with non-augmented humans without Harald’s assistance, if Irje’s magical defence mechanisms even slightly resembled that of a sheyda, the complications they would've caused to the fidelity of her connection were impossible to predict. “Why would it even make her magic stronger in the first place? It is… a gardening tool, made to cut things and little else. Perhaps it was one of those breakthroughs and the rest was just a coincidence?”

“Believe me, Erf, it wasn’t. That splash of power didn’t have the sharpness of Bragge’s trinket, and thus went largely unnoticed by the powers above, but it was murky nevertheless. I did recognise it, however — her magic swelled specifically from the contact with your living blade. Your other wife might ask you for a similar gift, but I urge you to wait — now that the trinket is dormant, your splashes will be seen with relative ease.”

I nodded, even though it would take weeks until a new trimmer could be grown anyway — Albin’s advice wasn’t just about the blade but all my improvements that resulted in a sudden growth of magic. My lessons on non-Euclidean geometry, tracing curves along Anaise’s breasts, not only boosted her magic and turned parts of my laboratory into fine gravel but gave me her hand in marriage. My musings on chemistry that turned her flame spells into explosions…

My mind grasped a tiny thread and refused to let go. “What if it wasn’t Flow itself.”

“Hmm?”

“I am sure you know by now that I killed a Creature.”

He grinned. “Or two.”

“Or two. I bested it not because I was able to outmanoeuvre it — it was perfectly aware of my movements even with me being a murk — but because I split my mind into two. The Creature’s magic predicted both shards of my consciousness just as easily as it had done before, but it was unable to keep up with me switching from one to another. Magic was still there, just as powerful, but the Creature couldn’t use it to its full extent. That is likely the reason why some of my trinkets and revelations could enhance wermages so rapidly. The magic was already there from the beginning, waiting to be used, I just gave them tools to notice it. Even the trimmer — it might be a simple tool but it isn’t a dumb brick either — it can provide some assistance to prevent its user from loping off parts of their body while working and guide their mind to create better curves and shapes. Something that Irje struggled with so far, due to her late Flow education.”

Albin nodded. “A Flow oar of sorts. That is quite likely, but you are leading somewhere with it. Go on.”

“What if it is not Flow that trinket is invisible to but the perception of observers? What if it is invisible simply because no one has achieved a ‘breakthrough’ yet to see the waves?”

“Breakthroughs can happen at any time. Or never. It is a good theory but not a very useful one by itself.”

I flexed my arm and let my skinsuit envelop it. “When my flesh can’t keep up, I encase it in armour. When my sight is too dull, I make lenses, looking glasses, and implant additional eyes. I am certain that someone who knows time-reversal runes might have an idea or two on how to craft a Flow-sensing artefact to bypass the need for a breakthrough altogether… Or improve the one he already has… further.”

Albin’s eyes peered into my third fully-open eye as his trusty deck of cards emerged out of thin air. The cards orbited his body in a dazzling display of speed, until he snapped one of them midflight, scattering the rest on the floor. His owlish eyes left mine for the briefest of moments, only to return with a mischievous spark inside. It wasn’t just a theory anymore. “I seem to never walk out from our meetings empty-handed…”

“Then help me ensure our meetings continue in the future with the same candour and importance,” I jabbed my thumb at the walls of the room. “Get me a sample of your runes. The subtle ones, unlike the ones I saw in Bragge’s yurt. Allow me to rely on and use the ‘expected’ means rather than resorting to my less-than-conventional tricks by Emanai standards. Because once this campaign is over, I want respite. I want to ponder the mysteries and dedicate my time to my family without worrying that some — be it Kamshad, Archomilea, or Barsashahr Divines — are constantly looking behind my back.”

“Sure!” Albin grinned as if I’d asked him to pass the salt, but his jovial expression didn’t last. “But there will be conditions attached to those gifts, Erf. For one, they won’t be shared with the Kiymetl, Enoch, Esca — any House for that matter — just you and your nascent Manor. I can weather some of the pressure when it comes to sharing our secrets, largely because of your insights and assistance to my family, but I can only argue for so much. Don’t blink at me in surprise — we both know that sooner or later your ‘estate’ will be forced to shed away the children’s tunic it had already outgrown and don the kaftan of a proper Manor.”

“That… is a reasonable demand.” I nodded, gathering my thoughts. Despite how it looked sometimes, I wasn’t a charity for Pillar Houses. While many of my gifts and revelations were not immediately repaid in hard gold and land, they got me quite a hefty amount of ‘social credit’ among the various political entities of Emanai. Moreover, those gifts were mine to share and for each one I gave away there were ten I kept for myself and a hundred that were too dangerous to reveal. “It is not even the first magical secret that I swore to keep private.”

Albin glanced at my bundled piano. “It will be the first secret that you will not bring into Samat proper. When I said that those secrets will not be shared I meant both willingly and not. A single moderately successful attack, akin to what happened with your sword, and the privilege would be immediately stripped from you… or worse.”

“Wouldn’t a bustling city offer an additional layer of protection? Hiding in plain sight, surrounded by noise, that sort of thing?” I offered back. While I didn’t have a special attachment to Samat, Anaise likely had other thoughts on this matter. Peeling Isra away from her new workshop would also be quite a challenge, whereas Aikerim only let me travel north once Yeva stayed behind as my replacement.

Additionally, the capital of Emanai was an important trading node with access to a broad array of goods in significant quantities, including labour. The proximity to the highest level of the Emanai legal system, the Summit of Speakers, was equally crucial — Aikerim had brought my case against Shahin and her accomplices in the House of Samat in a matter of days. It would’ve been weeks if her manor was located in one of the two ‘younger sisters’ of the capital: Amul or Uureg. Months, anywhere else or if she had to present my case to a local magistrate first.

He shook his head. “I am not trying to trap you with a promise you won’t keep. There are plenty of eyes directed at Aikerim’s Manor and while not relying on Flow makes you immune to the tricks that can fool an experienced wermage, your inability to harness it will remain as a gap in your armour. And no, that Flow-sensing array of yours might be sensitive enough to detect the emanations of an untrained wermage, but it won’t forewarn you about a truly capable spellcaster readying their magic. At the very least — not quickly enough to matter. Do not assume the Houses will remain as they are now — some wermages are already dusting off old codices, unearthing the long-forgotten spells from the time when murk kingdoms held power. Including the Kiymetl.”

I rubbed my chin in thought. That was quite a tactical reminder about my runecraft revealing Irje as a wermage, but Albin was well-known for dismantling arguments right before they would be uttered. It drove Anaise up the nearby walls while I saw it more like a surface to bounce my ideas off. My array having limited usability spoke volumes already — Albin was talking about magic that couldn’t be cast from afar like his divination cards. As such, a sufficient exclusion zone might be just the solution I could enforce even against wermages. But not in Samat, just as he said, since the city was simply too densely urban and the House of Samat likely wouldn’t permit Aikerim to purchase so much land around her manor. Even if the owners would be willing to sell it in the first place — those watchful eyes had to be watching from somewhere.

Aikerim had other properties under her name, however, and was already planning on expanding further; she also knew how to appreciate solitude and nice fresh air without whiffs of rotting refuse and human excrement when a rare gust of wind would come from an inconvenient direction.

Like that summer villa, where Shahin retreated to before her disastrous attempt on my life. I had options.

“I will discuss this with my wives.”