Chapter Five #2
briefly, before looking away.
Their feet shuffled
through sand.
“Tell me about your
father,” Zaria said.
He gazed up at the
sky, searching for clouds. He couldn’t find a single one. Eventually, he said:
“What do you want to know?”
“Whatever you care
to say.”
“As I told you, I’ve
never met the man. That is rather why I’m here.”
“Aye, no, but you
did say that all your teachers used to harp about his virtues. You must’ve
heard tales and such.”
Isaac peeled a flap
of skin from the back of his thumb. “More than I wanted to hear.”
“Oh?” Zaria asked,
perking an ear.
“Well, I mean—” He realized
what he had said. He also realized that talking with Zaria had made him bolder
than he had ever been at home. Certainly, he had never dared to argue against
his uncle like he had with her. “It’s only that . . . they would tell me these
stories like I was destined to become my father, like I would invariably end up
following his footsteps and sharing his thoughts and earning his achievements.
My uncle once said we were already two souls sharing a body. He didn’t seem
happy about the thought.”
Zaria nodded along.
“Is he a good man, your father?”
“From what I’ve
heard,” Isaac replied. “Yes.”
“But he ain’t you.”
“Well—”
“You wanna be like
him?”
Isaac took a moment
to speak. “It wouldn’t be a poor choice.”
“People gotta make
their own way in the world, love.”
“That’s not how it
works,” he said, frowning at the sun. The light was burning his face, and he
was already sick of it. “I’ve inherited his magics, his propensities. The
baseline potential of someone’s magic is governed by their heritage. I have
good heritage. Thus, I have his potential. And his expectation.”
“How good’s this
heritage?”
“My mother was an
enchanter, which wasn’t extraordinary. My father was close to becoming a master
in both elemental transmutation and necrotic counteraction, which marked him as
proficient in two separate schools, which was extraordinary.” He paused.
“Is still extraordinary, I should say.”
Zaria nodded,
walking beside him.
“It was discovered,”
he continued, “that I responded very well to my uncle’s training. Through him,
I’ve managed to become proficient in both elements and necrotics, just like my
father.” He peeled another flap of skin. “Though, of course, I’m still only a
journeyman. I have much more to learn.”
She hummed to
herself. “How old are you, exactly?”
“Old enough.”
“Oh, aye. Big strappin’ lad, you are. ‘Scuse my asking.”
“How old are you?”
“Now, now.” She
wagged a clawed finger. “That ain’t a question to ask a woman, squire.”
“I don’t think you
qualify as a woman.”
She gave a rough
chuckle, muzzle opening wide beneath the shawl. Her teeth were yellow and
sharp.
“Anyway—” Isaac
began.
“You know,” Zaria
said, “I keep seein’ you peek at my lady bits, young
sir.”
“Anyway—”
“If it settles the
matter, I’ll drop my skivvies—”
“Anyway,”
Isaac continued, loudly. “My father.”
“Aye. Your father.”
“I’ve heard,” Isaac
said, “from others that he was very generous. He would do any favor anyone ever
asked of him. He was—he was kind, and sensitive, and he never let his prowess
turn into arrogance. This sort of attitude never got him far in the Diet, but
it earned him many friends. I’ve hardly met anyone who didn’t have a good
impression.”
Zaria did not respond
immediately. He had a feeling she was watching his reaction, perhaps still
thinking about his comment about her, as a woman, a creature of the opposite
sex. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see the sashay
of her thighs as she walked beside him, each of which was about the size of his
torso. They suggested a great deal of strength. She could easily run him down
if he ever tried to flee.
He tried to find the
moons in the sky, forcing his mind onto matters of astronomical orbit. When was
the next phase of the lunar eclipse?
“Sure,” the hyena
said, eventually. “I imagine so. I also imagine it’s why your uncle never got
on with the man, being all miserly and such.”
Isaac shook his
head. “Very much so.”
“I imagine he had
some choice words about your father’s capture.”
“Oh, you can’t
imagine.” He started counting with his fingers. “He said it was entirely his
fault. He called him a fool for thinking himself special. He told me how my
father always used to rush through their lessons. He would tell me stories
about his brother sticking his hand into hexes and beehives and other women and
never thinking about the consequences.”
“Other women?” Zaria
asked. “Ain’t he married? Is this one of them lichen things?”
“Lichen things?”
“Well, like.” She
scratched her long neck. “Lichen-ess? Something?”
“Oh.” He gave her a
suffering look. “Licentious. Not like that, no. This was before my
mother. There was no infidelity.”
“Aw. Shame.”
“Does everything
have to be about sex with you?”
“When it makes you
blush, sure.”
Isaac frowned, but
said nothing.
“Well,” Zaria said,
“I can’t say I know much about wizard politics, but I ain’t surprised to hear a
good soul like your father never made it too far. From my experience, the
Diet’s more greedy than a dock bird at tide.”
For the first time
in a while, Isaac glanced at her. “What, pray tell, would you know about the
Diet of Nine?”
She shrugged. “I
know they take bribes.”
“What?”
“I know they—”
“What do you mean,”
Isaac said, interrupting, “they take bribes?”
“Just what it sounds
like.”
Isaac blinked at
her, momentarily ignoring the sun. “Who is taking these bribes?”
“I told you.”
“No, no, you—” The
more he thought about it, the more upset he became. “Who, exactly, is
taking these bribes? Was it a customs agent? A border patrol? A judiciary?”
“All of ‘em,
really.”
“I highly doubt it’s
all of them.”
“Well,” Zaria said,
“no, but it’s enough that it makes no matter. I’ve been around most of the
Nine, and it’s the same most place you go. Coins make
for passage. Even for pirates. Problem is, the Diet always made us pay out the
arse if we didn’t open cargo. Something about ‘peace of the land’ and such.”
“Yes,” Isaac said,
still frankly bewildered. “It is for the peace of the land. The Diet of Nine
regulates all magic in the region, from artifacts to people. They’re supposed
to be very strict about what passes for trade.”
The hyena blew a
raspberry. “Buncha rubbish, you ask me. They’d take our gold, same as any
other. In fact, I’d see ‘em rob folk worse than we did, half the time. They’d
throw a man in irons just for lookin’ funny, and they’d rush to strip his
carriage down to the plank.”
“It’s for a reason.”
“What reason’s that,
exactly?”
“Could you imagine,”
Isaac said, “what would happen if I had free passage into any of the Nine? You
saw how easily I destroyed your ship. I could do the same anywhere. To anyone.”
“That weren’t my
ship.”
“Even so.”
She glanced at him.
“You plannin’ on acting the dragon? Swooping down and breathing fire?”
“No,” Isaac said.
“That’s not my point. The point is that I could. Anyone could. A single
elemental mage, set loose upon a kingdom, could cause mass amounts
of destruction. The same is true for enchantments, and
hexes, and ancient artifacts, and any number of technologies currently under
development. It needs to be regulated. Otherwise, you get The Scorch again.”
Zaria grunted.
“You’ve heard of
that, I assume?” Isaac asked.
“Better than you,
probably.”
“Well, in that case,
I wouldn’t need to tell you it’s the reason the Diet of Nine exists at all.
There are entire forests so overrun with enchantment that a single sneeze would
turn you to stone. It formed glaciers. It fissured mountains
apart. There’s still wizards alive who fought in those wars, and they
have every interest in not repeating the same mistakes. Hence, the Diet of
Nine. The Assembly of Nine. The Meeting of Minds. And so on. It’s a
collaboration between kingdoms, a supranational body of government. Frankly,
it’s a miracle of diplomacy.”
Zaria nodded, as if
she were thinking. Isaac hoped he’d gotten through to her.
“Still a buncha
greedy cunts,” she said.
He sighed.
“I mean,” Zaria
said, “Vekra’s tits, I’ve gone a good ways around the Nine, I’ve stolen some
odd-looking baubles from magical sorts, and the most consequence I ever had was
payin’ hand to fist. They knew I had what ain’t mine. They didn’t care. They
just wanted their cut of the fat.”
“Well,” Isaac said.
“The Diet is very large. It can’t control everyone. There will always be bad
actors. It doesn’t mean the alternative would be better.”
“You say that, but
you’re the one livin’ rich.”
“Well, yes.”
“And the mages are
the ones now in power, after they wreaked terror on the common folk.”
“I wouldn’t
describe—”
“Funny how the ones
with power always end up gettin’ rich. Ain’t it?”
He did not answer.
The conversation
trickled away. A gust of wind sheared across the top of a dune, raining a
sprinkle of sand into Isaac’s messy hair. He shook his head, forcing himself to
raise his eyes toward the sun, trying to squint through the glare. It was
growing close to midmorning, and, if his recollections of the map were still
accurate, they must be getting very near to the entrance of the old necromancer
capital.
He might be able to
spot it now.
He wrinkled his
gaze, furrowing his brow, doing his best to ignore the stabbing aches that shot
through his eye. He wanted, more than anything, to finally see the tomb.
The colossus.
He had journeyed for
so long. He was tired. He was covered in scrapes and pain. He was sure that,
once he spied the jutting skull, and the strange
contours of its crown, it would all feel like a worthwhile—
“There,” Zaria said.
He was startled.
“What?”
“There you go,” she said.
“Look at that. We were just talkin’ a while.”
Isaac twisted his
wrists beneath the rope, trying to take a breath. Whatever focus he had was
gone.
“Seems you and I can