Keiran

In the worst-case scenario, Ammun’s hunters finally caught up with me and came in numbers. Even if they were all stage fours, I still wasn’t worried about them actually killing me, but the fact that they’d found my family’s home was a different matter.

“What are they doing?” Father asked, rising to his feet and crossing the room to reach the farmer.

“They haven’t attacked yet. I saw them teleport in and ran to tell you right away.”

“So they’re still in the market square?” Father asked.

I tuned out the conversation and sent a scrying spell over to see for myself. There were nine of them loitering near the teleportation platform, mostly just looking around and muttering to each other in low voices. No one had confronted them, but the locals were giving them curious or frightened looks, sometimes both.

All of them wore metal armor and wielded spears or axes, but none of them were threatening anyone quite yet. None of them were mages, at least. I judged them to be dangerous to a random person, but not an issue for me to deal with. The real problem was that if they were hunters looking for me, them not reporting back would draw attention to the area and lead to even more people coming here.

“Let’s go see what they want,” I suggested.

“What if they’re here looking for you?” Father asked.

“They won’t find me.”

Senica and I both stood up. She snatched up her wand from her desk and gave me a nod, then we all filed out into the street. As we walked, I cast an enchantment on myself that would make it hard for people to focus on me. As soon as that was in place, I followed it with an invisibility spell, which was probably overkill, but it cost practically nothing at this point.

“I wish I could do that,” Senica said wistfully as I faded away.

“Huh?” Father asked.

One of the drawbacks of the enchantment was that it worked on my family as well. Father had already forgotten that I was walking next to him, and Senica wouldn’t resist much longer. She frowned at the empty air and shook her head. “It’s nothing,” she said, struggling to remember what she’d been thinking about.

Father approached the market square with Senica and the farmer who’d rushed to let us know about the strangers flanking him on either side. New Alkerist was a far cry from the dirt road and mud-brick huts I’d known when I’d been born, and the center of the town reflected that. The streets were paved in stone, and the buildings were one or sometimes two stories tall. They were also shaped from stone, with glass windows and sturdy wooden doors. I’d made the initial handles and latches with magic, but at some point, they’d acquired a blacksmith who knew more than just repairing farm tools.

The traders used the platform network I’d created to get around and they’d come back with plenty of metal, among other things. The town had grown so prosperous, in fact, that they’d switched off the bartering system and were now using the same currency the neighboring kingdom had pioneered, a type of cloth-based paper they called velci that was quite difficult to replicate with transmutation magic.

The square hadn’t been crowded to begin with, and, other than the tavern serving meals to farmers coming in late from the fields, everything was closed for the night. A group of strangers appearing on the platform was reason enough for everybody else to clear out.

“Why did I think it was a good idea to let you come?” Father muttered to Senica after the crowd of strangers came into view.

“Because I’m the strongest mage available,” she told him.

“There are nine of them!”

“It’ll be fine.”

It would be, but I suspected if it came down to a fight, Senica wouldn’t win it by herself. She was doing well, but she’d almost certainly run out of mana before she could put them all down. Practicing magic was an expensive process, and her mana crystal was less than a quarter full. I’d have to step in to help if things weren’t resolved peacefully.

“I’m here,” I said softly from behind them, making all three of them jump.

“Oh, right,” Father said. He’d forget again soon enough, but the reminder gave him the confidence to approach the group without worrying about Senica’s safety.

“Hello,” one of the strangers said as we walked up. He was a tall man, broad-shouldered with a shaved head and piercing eyes. “Is this the village called New Alkerist?”

“It is,” Father said. “What can I help you with?”

“We were told that this village produces a surplus of food that they use for trading. We would like to purchase some.”

That was true. I’d spent some time creating a few custom transmutation spells to turn the ground here from a dead, sun-baked wasteland to something arable. We’d also diverted a river to help with irrigation, and with so many of the farmers having ignited cores and some education in casting invocations, they easily outworked the other villages. Admittedly, we’d made no effort to keep that knowledge concealed and it was slowly spreading to those communities, so it was a temporary advantage.

I had no problem with people being given the tools they needed to improve their lives, though in this case it was creating a bit of a trail leading back to me. We’d started the process years before Ammun had woken back up, however, meaning it was far too late to do anything about it now.

“That… could probably be arranged. We’re primarily operating on a velci currency here, but if you don’t have any, we could do some bartering. Before we get into that, though, how much food are you talking about and how are you planning to transport it?” Father asked.

“As much as you can possibly spare,” the bald man said. “We have an entire town of refugees to feed and not enough food to last us a week.”

Father was taken aback at that. “Refugees? From what?”

“You see our skin, hear our accents? We flee a war from far, far away. Our home was a coastal town, so when the soldiers came to demand we submit in the name of their empire, we fled in our boats. We ended up on this island, on a spit of land to the west of the mountains. Most of our people are still there, but some of us continued on to find food and supplies. We landed at a place you call the Outlander’s Gateway and heard about this town there.”

“I didn’t even know there was any land west of the mountains,” Father said. “Why choose to settle there?”

“We are fisher folk. We wanted a town with access to the ocean. Also it is good land, much better than what I’ve seen of the interior so far. The majority of this island seems to be desert or scrubland, excepting your town, of course. I am confident that in a few months, we’ll be completely self-sufficient, assuming we can last that long.”

Father nodded along. “Which brings you back to buying food to fill the gap in your supplies. I think we can be of some help, but it’d be best if you talk to our traders. I run the farms themselves, but I don’t negotiate on behalf of the town.”

“I see. Very sensible of you to direct us to whoever it is we need to talk to,” the man said. “Would it be possible for my men to rest in that tavern I see over there?”

“As long as they can behave and keep those weapons sheathed, I don’t see why not,” Father said. He turned to the farmer accompanying him and said, “Would you go in with them and make sure nobody does anything foolish?”

“Of course,” the farmer said. “Happy to.”

He didn’t look at all happy about it to me, but my father had grown to be quite respected these days. Unlike his time living as the town pariah in Old Alkerist, here he was judged on his actions today, not on a mistake he’d made as a child. Whatever this particular farmer’s personal thoughts on the request, he was going to do it just because it was my father who’d asked.

I’d keep an eye on this situation, but from all appearances, this group wasn’t a threat. I hadn’t been able to scry the Sanctum of Light properly since Ammun had taken control of it. His claim on its genius loci made it impossible to penetrate its defenses, and I’d been more focused on improving my own position regardless, but perhaps I should have spent more time observing the land around the tower. Unfortunately, the land around the Sanctum was too far away to scry without some sort of beacon, and the ones I’d left during my journey there had long since been starved of mana and collapsed.

That did not mean I was completely out of options, just that my efforts to obtain information would be both expensive and limited. I would start with something a bit closer to home, however. If these strangers were being honest, it would be simple enough to find their new settlement and confirm their story. And if they were lying, well, it would be equally simple to find out why they were really here.

The square emptied out quickly enough and I made my way back to my family’s home to let Mother know what had happened. There was no sense in leaving her to worry, and I left scrying spells both at the tavern and following Father to ensure our uninvited guests remained on their best behavior.

While I walked, I considered my own next step. I’d spent years preparing to bond a genius loci and claim my demesne, but now that I’d done that, I needed to start preparing to reach stage seven. Things got complicated there since it involved opening a portal to the Astral Realm, which was going to be particularly challenging since I doubted there was a single point of mana resonance left on the planet. I’d have to manufacture my own, something I wasn’t entirely sure could even be done.

It had been so much easier in my old life. Mana resonance points were well-known, at least in my circles. They might be difficult to reach, but the whole thing was a straightforward process. If the world hadn’t been broken a few thousand years back, I’d already be on my way to the nearest resonance point to bring my core in line with the Astral Realm so I could advance to stage seven.

Now… I shook my head and sighed, causing a merchant walking past me to peer in my direction for a moment. Then my attention redirection enchantment washed over him and the man promptly dismissed the sound. Truthfully, it wasn’t doing me much good to keep the enchantment running anymore; I already had eyes on all the strangers and none were near me. But it was good practice in my never-ending quest to perfect my magic.

Enchantments, inscriptions, and alchemy were the worst offending disciplines for my technique of casting spells without wasting mana, but I was slowly making progress in figuring out the trick to things. It would just take time and patience.

I dropped both spells as soon as I got home and found Mother still sitting on the couch. Nailu was fast asleep laying on her while she absently stroked his hair. “Welcome home,” she said, looking up at me as I entered the room. “You don’t seem upset, so I’m guessing things went okay.”

“Okay enough,” I said. “But I’ve got to do some work to get caught up on current events on foreign shores. Apparently, we have refugees fleeing a war and washing up here.”

With that, I pulled my scrying mirror out of my phantom space and started casting spells through it. When Father and Senica came home an hour later, I’d barely moved an inch. I glanced over to meet his eyes and shook my head. “It’s not good,” I told him.