Keiran

I ended up with an entire notebook of sketches from Hebrem, who grew crankier and crankier about the work I was forcing on him with each passing minute. His mental defenses remained solidly in place throughout the entire questioning, which did make it harder for me to trust him, but I thought the information was probably genuine.

There was definitely more going on with those machines than just creating a tether to the tower. They were far more advanced than they needed to be, and also far more delicate. There was no reason to overengineer them to the point of introducing unnecessary vulnerabilities into the system, and I knew Ammun was smarter than that. It was obvious that he hadn’t told his followers everything.

My best guess was that they were vastly underestimating the range of freedom Ammun planned to claim with these devices. Just from the pieces I knew about, they seemed to scale an enormous amount, enough to cover the entire globe and then some. It just didn’t make sense, though. Why would he need that? Was it just because he could, or did it do something else besides tether him to his source of mana?

I just didn’t have enough pieces of the puzzle to come up with anything definitive. All I knew for sure was that the machines weren’t only designed to let him roam his reestablished empire freely. There was more to them, and I would likely find it much more difficult to sabotage his plans next time.

Frustrated with this line of questioning, I decided to move on. “What’s the point of this expansion operation? Killing people, taking their homes, driving refugees out? Why not integrate these towns into Ralvost if Ammun is that determined to revive the empire?”

Hebrem hesitated on that, not because he didn’t know the answer, but because he thought I wouldn’t like it. Either Ammun was doing something that was amassing him power and I needed to be worried, or Hebrem had misread the direction my moral compass pointed in.

“He… This isn’t an opinion shared by everybody, mind you. Lord Ammun’s people sheltered in the tower after Ralvost was broken. The dirt people who lived in the towns and villages outside the Sanctum… they are foreigners who came to Ralvost and took over the land.”

“I didn’t know Ammun was so… patriotic,” I said. “So it’s really as simple as not wanting anyone he considers an outsider to be part of his empire. Does he know what the word ‘empire’ even means?”

Unexpectedly, Hebrem laughed. “Several of my former colleagues made a similar argument, though worded with a bit more civility. I say former because they are no longer among the living.”

I was not surprised to find out that Ammun styled himself a God-Emperor, one with absolute and unquestionable authority. Even as an apprentice, he’d hated taking orders from anyone else. It had made him a chore to teach, but his family had been in control of a region rife with rare alchemical ingredients and had strong enough political ties that I hadn’t been willing to deal with the headache of having an entire nation declare war against me if I just took what I wanted.

“And the tower dwellers being forced out into those lands is more of the same?” I asked.

“Perhaps. Lord Ammun certainly said as much. We all suspect that he determined having thousands of mages living there had a significant impact on the amount of mana available for him to use, however. That may have motivated the decision more strongly than any feelings of patriotism you believe he has.”

I doubted that was the reason. For the moment, at least, his demesne produced more mana than he could possibly use. Perhaps he expected to strain his resources when he turned on his new machines and was preemptively relocating his forces away from his center of power, but that didn’t feel right, either. I knew how much mana the tower pulled from the world core, and I knew how much he needed to survive. It was barely a fraction of what he had available to him, and powering a few machines wouldn’t change that.

Finally, I’d finished asking all my questions. I got some answers I suspected were deliberate lies, and more answers that were admittedly guesswork, but I ended the interrogation with a much, much better understanding of what Ammun was up to. There was just one remaining detail to figure out.

“What should I do with you?” I mused out loud.

“The deal was that you would release me!”

“It certainly wasn’t. The deal was that you would answer my questions or I would kill you. There was no mention of what would happen once I was done asking those questions.”

Hebrem’s face reddened and he scowled. I could sense him start to pull mana from his core, even through his admittedly excellent shroud. “Don’t,” I warned.

“You treacherous bastard,” he hissed. “We had a deal, and now you’re going back on it?”

“I have an alternative to killing you,” I said. “But it requires your cooperation, and you’re not going to like it.”

“No.”

“You really don’t want to be saying that.”

“Whatever you’re thinking of doing to me, I’m not going to let you.”

“It’s the only way you’re getting out of here alive.”

“You’re not going to let me leave alive. I was an idiot to trust you.”

I sighed. “I will, but not as a threat to go back to my enemy and continue supporting him.”

“There’s no way to guarantee that,” Hebrem argued. “What oath could I possibly swear that you’d believe?”

“You’re correct. Nothing you can say would convince me. However, there is something that I can do to ensure you’re physically incapable of helping Ammun further.”

Hebrem’s eyes widened and he took a step back. “No, absolutely not. I’m not letting you break my mana core.”

“Either your life as a mage ends today, or just your life,” I told him.

Hebrem unleashed the spell he’d been secretly building up, but offensive conjurations weren’t his specialty. Not only did I not need any special defenses beyond my standard shield ward to protect myself, it was easy to foul up the spell just as he cast it. With a little less than ten feet between us, my counterspell was instant.

His attack, some sort of paralyzing enchantment, fizzled out. I shook my head and said, “I understand why you’d choose death over life without magic.”

Then I mentally activated the enchantments I’d placed in the room long before I’d brought Hebrem here, and everything that wasn’t me was instantly vaporized in a flash of heat and pressure. There was nothing left of the man but a single lump of polished black stone, the compressed matter of his entire body, now small enough to hold in the palm of my hand.

“I did say I’d make it quick and painless,” I told the lump.

* * *

“Can you look these over and give me your thoughts?” I asked Querit as I dropped the notebook Hebrem had scribbled designs in onto a table. “I can’t vouch for the accuracy of everything in here, so it’s best to assume there could be some errors, intentional or otherwise.”

The golem was sitting in an underground bunker connected to his workshop inside one of his two combat frames. It was hard to tell with him hidden inside the shell, but I thought I might have surprised him with my entrance. He certainly flinched hard enough to make me suspect he hadn’t realized I was there.

“Intra-demesne teleportation,” he muttered, his voice strangely modulated from inside his frame.

“Quick, easy, and cheap,” I confirmed. “But also, I’ve been standing here for the last minute, flipping through this thing myself. I just didn’t say anything. You’re unobservant.”

“So the professor always told me,” he said dryly. “What’s this?”

“Extracted information on the machines we busted up. They’re too complex for what my prisoner thought they were used for, which was a link between Ammun and the tower that would let him roam the countryside freely. I suspect the machines have other functions he’s kept hidden from his underlings. It would be a good idea to figure out what those functions are just in case any of them threaten us.”

“Right. Uh, where’s the guy who drew all this in case I have any questions?”

I pulled the black stone out of my phantom space and set it on the table. “I don’t think he’ll be much in the mood to answer, but you’re welcome to try.”

“You killed him? Why?! I thought he answered your questions.”

“He did,” I said, “and then he tried to attack me and escape once he found out I wasn’t going to let him leave with his mana core intact. There was no way I was going to let a mage with archmage-level defensive magics return to Ammun with information about what the inside of my demesne looks like.”

“I understand, but…” Querit cut himself off and shook his head. “No, it was the right decision.”

“I’m glad you agree. I need to go pick up my other prisoner that the brakvaw captured for me and interrogate him. I’ll try to get some corroborating information about what these machines actually do so we can cross-reference these rune structures.”

Querit glanced over at the glossy black rock that used to be a human being and shuddered so hard his entire combat frame rattled. “I suppose there’s no need for me to be inside this thing anymore,” he said. The seams on the armor opened up, and a childlike Querit of no more than four feet in height stepped out. His body shifted, and he immediately shot up to something closer to six feet.

“I suggest you do some thinking about building a new frame designed for aerial skirmishing, because this isn’t going to be the last attack. Ammun has an undead dragon minion, and if he figures out how to get that over here, we’re going to be in for a hell of a fight.”

“So much to do,” Querit said. “Now a combat frame on top of that?”

“Prioritize these notes. Figuring out what Ammun’s making will help point us to the right preparations to defend against it. After that, any progress you can make on adapting lossless casting for enchantments and inscriptions would be the biggest help. If we get to the point where I need your help in a spell duel with Ammun’s forces, we’ve probably already lost anyway.”

“Then why do you want me making an aerial frame?” he asked.

“In case you need to run away.”

“Oh,” he said quietly. Maybe it hadn’t occurred to him that I might lose next time a group of hostile mages appeared. I hadn’t told him how much worse this attack could have been if not for that one mage who’d set off my divination wards by straying too far from their formation.

“I’ll leave you to it. I’ve got plenty of other projects of my own to deal with,” I told the golem. “Expect to hear from me again in a few hours.”

I teleported back across the valley to my outbound teleportation platform. Thankfully, the brakvaw had allowed me to set up a platform on Eyrie Peak, so it wouldn’t take me long to go fetch my prisoner. I wondered what Grandfather would ask for in exchange, and whether he’d want it immediately or if he’d bank the favor for later.

I also needed to see my family soon. Other than a quick scry of New Alkerist to confirm the attack had been localized to just my demesne, I hadn’t made any sort of contact with the farm town. Now that I knew Ammun had located me, I needed to take additional measures to ensure I could quickly defend both my home and theirs.

“So much to do is exactly right,” I muttered. The real question was how much time I had left to do it.