Jeron arrived at the Mageguild Demesne to find a group of armored Valiants flanking the gate.
“A guard detail?” He had never seen so many soldiers on the normally peaceful grounds.
“Of a sort,” a familiar voice hailed him. Jeron turned to find Niamh’s commanding officer approaching. “Did you get my note?”
“Captain Hawke,” Jeron replied and bowed. “I did, yes.”
“And what did she have to say?” Hawke looked at Jeron, eyes glinting in the magelamps flickering about the twilit compound. Hawke’s expression was stony, the furrow in his brow deepened with strain. He held himself ramrod straight, his stance wide and ready for battle, one hand resting on the hilt of his sword.
Jeron tried to hide his surprise at the coolness and unease in the other man’s demeanor. “Honestly, not much. She’s been having nightmares. I don’t think any of her family can travel to Tanahr to see her. She basically just said ‘hello,’ then went right back into deep sleep.”
“I see. Please keep me posted. You have been so good to her. Now, I hate to admit it, but I have no clue where I’m going. I envy my soldiers out here, minding the perimeter.” Hawke cast a thoughtful gaze at the Valiants stationed at the Demesne gates.
“I at least know my way around, even if I’m in the dark, literally and otherwise. I can show you the way,” Jeron said.
He guided the other man through the garden and toward a hidden side entrance, the gates peeking through a tangle of ivy and white bellflowers. Other Mageguild sages rushed in the same direction, all of them quiet, save for swishing green robes. Their faces mirrored the concern he felt, but he calmed his nerves and motioned Captain Hawke to follow.
“Sir,” Jeron said, hesitant. “I’m sorry about the Valiant Corps’ losses.”
“Thank you. We sent two excellent soldiers to The Source that day, but it could have been so much worse. Niamh helped us all. It still stuns me to think that she defeated two Mechanae by herself.”
“She’s an extraordinary woman,” Jeron said. He guided Hawke around a corner and down a narrow, sloping hallway. “I’ll go to Niamh again as soon and as often as I’m able. I arrived in Easthaven only this evening, and now I believe we’re in for more unpleasant news.”
Moya Anders jogged up to Jeron, scowling. “What is this all about? It’s giving me a bad feeling.”
“Not really sure yet.” Jeron shrugged. “Something about the Northgate Expedition, or you riffraff wouldn’t be here. Anyhow, it’s good to see you. Follow me.” He gave Moya a playful shove, but the levity faded when an icy shock of protection magic coursed through the hallways, teasing goosebumps over his skin and shivers up and down his spine. These were rare spells only the Loremaster herself could cast, and only at great need and cost.
The moot chamber was a haven for urgent meetings and protected by the most complex leymagic spells in Ahra—at least, the ones that were safe to use. Members of the Mageguild only gathered here when the guild was in danger. Having outsiders present was rare.
The hall narrowed, forcing them to walk single file. Conversation fell silent near the narrow doorway ahead, people glancing warily at the bright white leymagic flashing each time someone stepped through the threshold.
Moya slowed.
“It’s only a spell to scan for curses and other dangerous magic,” Jeron reassured her. “You won’t feel a thing.”
“Just making sure. You leymages with your lights and noises and portaling half a body one place and the other half another are a menace.”
“Hey,” Jeron cut in. “I only did that once, and it was a toolkit, not a person. This place is safer than anywhere in Tanahr.” Jeron nudged her through. Once she had passed, Jeron stepped into the chamber, Captain Hawke close behind him.
Nearly everyone from the Northgate Expedition milled around or sat on rows of cushioned benches. The room vibrated with magic and the ticking clockworks of the arcane devices lining the chamber’s shelves. Jeron looked up to see Sage Kate waving at him as Rexi barreled into him from the other side.
“Sit, you little maelstrom,” Jeron said. He motioned for Moya and Captain Hawke to join him. Clanging meeting-bells sounded over the murmur of nervous conversation.
“Everyone, your attention front and center,” Loremaster Olangah called out as she stepped up onto the dais at the front of the moot chamber. “We have little time.”
She looked tired, her robes rumpled and dark eyes shadowed with concern. The Loremaster was an imposing and serious woman. Today, her grim demeanor doubled the effect. Another person joined her, sitting at the back of the dais in shadow. A woman wearing the distinct black and gold robes of an Ahran Archmage.
Others in the room noticed this turn of events, a rush of whispers and fidgeting moving through the chamber. Archmages were neutral and powerful mages who oversaw the use of leymagic in Ahra, and only ever showed at moots if something was terribly wrong.
“Yet another not-good sign,” Jeron thought.
“Hush, all of you!” The woman in black spoke in a commanding voice. Everyone lapsed into tense, expectant silence. “Loremaster, if you would.”
“Thank you, Archmage Miir. Disturbing news has come to us about the ambush on the Expedition. I’ve called in all involved who are not wounded or…” Her voice hitched. “Source willing, we will have time to mourn the dead soon. For now, I’ll call the expedition coordinator, Sage Belden, to report his findings.”
Belden, a man Jeron had always admired for his scholarship, joined the Loremaster on the dais. He had changed since Jeron had last seen him, and not for the better. In that brief time, Belden’s warm complexion had gone ashen and waxy, and shadows of exhaustion arced in half-moons under his eyes. His robes were unkempt, and he looked like he had not slept since the Expedition began.
“Ah… well,” Belden began, gaze darting nervously to the side. “You all know the Northgate Waystone and surrounding temple has long been inert, showing no signs of magic and missing much of its truesteel because of theft over the years. The day of the accident, though, it acted strangely.”
He wrung his hands and sweat beaded on his face. Unless Jeron was imagining things, the other man looked annoyed. Almost angry.
“Once, we might have restored the Waystone for travel, but thanks to what happened recently, it’s apparently no longer safe to even consider.”
“Not safe for good reason,” Sage Kate interrupted. “There were markings around the gate that appeared after the battle ended and the Mechanae were gone. The runes and sigils were not of any Old Guard language… they were Kraah.”
A rumble of surprise rippled through the room, fearful murmurs coupled with disbelief.
“Kraah?” Moya Anders snorted and shook her head. “Those are just bogeymen someone made up to keep children out of caves.”
“If only that were so,” Sage Kate said. Belden just looked away, expression set.
Jeron waited for people to quiet down and asked, “How can we know this as a certainty? Nobody has ever completely deciphered the Old Languages of Ahra.”
“Empirical evidence,” the Loremaster supplied, frowning. “For one, even with the thefts, there is more truesteel around this temple than most, but near the Waystone itself, none. A path clear of it extends from the stone through the temple’s east border. And where the truesteel is missing, we found sigils matching at least two extant texts referencing the Kraah. For another… Belden, you really do need to show them.”
Belden’s eyes were darker than before, but he did not speak. He fumbled at the sleeve of his robe, working the frayed fabric up over his elbow. Inky black and balefire-green sigils spidered over Sage Belden’s arm, the skin around the markings faded to a necrotic gray. As much as he preferred to stay calm, Jeron could not help his breath catching.
Voices echoed out all around the chamber. “Source preserve us,” someone cried out.
“Is it safe?”
“Will he live?”
“Will it spread?”
“Can we stop it, or at least slow it down?”
Jeron raised his hand and spoke, keeping his voice as steady and reasonable as he could. “What exactly is it?”
The Loremaster quieted them all with a wave, bracelets jingling in the sudden silence. “Sage Belden, you’ve done your duty for today and then some. Let’s get you back to resting. Novice Briseas?”
“Yes, Ma’am,” Rexi stood and dipped an awkward bow.
“Accompany him, if you please, to the infirmary wing,” the Loremaster said. “His affliction is thankfully not contagious—we understand enough of the corruption to know this. A barrier of protection holds him. Archmage Miir saw to this herself, and she is an expert in protective magic.”
Rexi bowed again, tail swishing, then scrambled to Belden’s side. With as much care as Jeron had ever seen her give anyone, she led the Sage back through the narrow door they had all come in. Before he was out of sight, Belden glanced back toward the moot chamber, eyes hard, mouth set in a fierce frown.
Jeron shuddered, unease slithering over him, then gone before he could think about it. Loremaster Olangah’s voice called him back to the moment.
“We will evaluate everyone who was at the site for similar corruption. As you can see, I’ve enlisted the help of Archmage Miir, who is currently visiting from her temporary lab in Duskmere and who is an expert in leylines and Kraah lore. She tells me we can use hair and fingernails to find traces of this dark magic. She has confirmed Sage Belden’s corruption is a series of Kraah curse runes, but with proper medicines and spells, he may yet live.”
Archmage Miir nodded in reply.
“Have we deciphered the sigils?” Jeron asked, curious despite himself.
“Only partly,” the Loremaster said. “Archmage Miir said what I feared most—that one mark is a sigil representing a creature known as The Voidsinger.”
Miir waved a hand, sitting up higher as she addressed the crowd. “The Old Guard myths across all of Ahra speak of banishing this creature to the aether. Orendt and Canrish even have accounts of rituals to keep the Voidsinger at bay, though, about a hundred years ago, a cult of leymages in the Dominion wanted to do the opposite and worshiped the creature like a god. It’s my understanding they believe the Kraah who exist in Ahra are working to create a portal into our world and let more of their kind join them here. There are rumors that the cultists who preach such things have been seeking ways to hasten the Voidsinger’s return. And yes, dear Valiant,” The Archmage flashed a dark smile at Moya. “To finally get back to what you were saying, most scholars agree the Kraah are bogeymen. But many fairytales have some basis in reality.”
Fear flashed in Moya’s eyes, but she shrugged it away. “Then we have work to do.”
“Yes, we do,” the Loremaster agreed. “And we start with information. Anything you’ve seen or heard, anything you might have uncovered during the expedition. Even if it didn’t seem important, but gave you the slightest hesitation. We need to know how Belden came by the corruption and what caused the Mechanae to behave as they did.”
“I know next to nothing about Old Guard lore, Ma’am, but I know tactics and patterns,” Captain Hawke said. “The Mechanae are purely defensive by nature. Generations of Ahran patrols have had no troubles with them, and now that we have our own mechanized weapons, ballistae, and lightning scepters—well, they would understand those kinds of tools and they continue to respect our peace honorably. They should not have attacked us.”
“There were too many of them in one place, too,” Moya added timidly.
“Go on,” Loremaster Olangah said with an encouraging nod.
Moya continued with rising confidence. “Everyone knows each Waystone, broken or otherwise, has three Mechanae guardians, but they patrol alone. They never clump up together. That day, all three were attacking near the Waystone.”
Archmage Miir shifted in her chair behind the Loremaster, a strange expression flickering over her face. “To all who were there, did you notice any strange lights or sounds around the Mechanae? And their remains, what happened to them?”
Hawke frowned. “They disintegrated into nothing, so we could not study them. And there were reports all over the camp of a strange green lightning or balefire no one could explain.”
“It must have been something about the Northgate itself,” Sage Kate said. “Something must have called the Mechanae there and driven them mad.”
“But why attack?” Jeron asked. His mind worked furiously. There was something important, something he was supposed to remember.
“Sage Kate is right. The Northgate is the key,” Loremaster Olangah said.
“The key!” Jeron blurted out. Words and images clicked into place in his mind like a lock’s tumblers engaging.
“What did you say, Sage Wright?” The Loremaster raised an eyebrow. Across the room, Captain Hawke sat up straighter, eyes keen.
“‘The key.’ It’s something Niamh Starsong, the Valiant who saved my life that day, kept saying while I was healing her, and again when she’d come out of deep sleep in the hospital. I—I thought she was delirious. She kept muttering something about a key and finding it, protecting it, but I couldn’t tell. Could she have been talking about a key to the portal?”
Sage Kate clapped her hands together. “A key. Yes, a key to a portal to let something into our world.”
The Loremaster’s expression fell. “I’ve read texts that speak of the Voidsinger being ‘reborn from its exile of Ahran devices,’ but I must know more before making assumptions. Truly, we have much work and research to do. The sooner, the better.”
The room went thick with fearful silence.
“Where do we begin?” Captain Hawke asked.
“We begin with knowledge,” Loremaster Olangah said. “Captain, talk to all of your soldiers who were there and get detailed accounts of everything they experienced. Jeron, as soon as Valiant Starsong is feeling well enough to talk, find out what she experienced, what she knows. I’ll meet with her myself as soon as I can so I can test her for any corruption. Archmage Miir will coordinate a task force to investigate other Waystone sites, including their Mechanae. The rest of you — soldiers, mages, novices and all, I am calling on you.”
Every gaze in the room locked on the Loremaster’s face.
“Those with any skill in protective warding, potions or curse-breaking will help Archmage Miir in her research. Those who actively surveyed the Waystone and temple site, go to your notes and to the Ahran Archives both here onsite and at the University, to any place that might have more information on this lore. Sage Kate?” Olangah looked expectantly at the other woman.
“Yes, Loremaster?”
“You’ll travel as soon as possible to retrieve Archmage Miir’s temporary workshop in Duskmere, just for a quick day trip. And Valiant Anders, you’ll go along as her bodyguard if Captain Hawke is amenable. We’ll provide you with a portal focus for the occasion.”
Captain Hawke briskly nodded his assent, and Moya smiled.
“The rest of you, be ready.” The Loremaster cast her gaze around the moot chamber. “We’ve fully apprised Premier Riva of the situation, and she promised to devote any necessary Tanahran resources to the cause. I’ll check in with each of you as I’m able. Dismissed.”
Jeron hung back while the others dispersed. He watched Captain Hawke asking the Loremaster and Archmage questions, only half-aware of what they were saying. He was distracted, and had been since he had visited the hospital only hours earlier. Jeron felt a rush at the thought of Niamh, the woman he had known so briefly, but who had changed his life so much.
Now, I must be the one to make her relive that horrible day. But at least I’ll see her again. And this time, I’ll bring her a gift.
Jeron had the earliest imaginings of a plan, something he had been thinking about in the few spare moments among the post-battle chaos and travels back to Easthaven. He needed to start some schematics, draw up some rudimentary materials lists.
“It’s a lot to take in, yes?” Hawke said, startling Jeron out of his thoughts.
“More than I know what to do with. How are you holding up?”
“Soldiering on, as they say. Sage Wright?” The Valiant addressed Jeron hesitantly.
“What is it?” Jeron asked.
“About Niamh. Please go gently with her when you see her next, especially when you tell her what is happening. The trauma will be a lot for her to manage. Survivor’s guilt, nightmares—she’s going to have it rough for a while. That’s even without all this Kraah complication added in.”
“I understand,” Jeron replied softly.
“I’ll see that the nurses have her out of deep-sleep and ready by morning a day from now so you can do as the Loremaster ordered. And I’ll say it again, for the safety of Ahra, I need to know everything you find out.”
“I promise I’ll update you as soon as I can.” Jeron bowed. “Source keep you.”
“And Source keep you.” The other man offered a small bow before he struck out toward the garrison portal.
Jeron hurried back to Hyacinth Way and his cluttered workshop. He had important work to do. Once there, he sank into his chair, pushed up his sleeves and lit the magelamps with light spells he knew would burn late into the night, then silently wished Niamh sweet dreams as he set to work.
—
Loremaster Olangah watched Mageguild sages and novices, stalwart Valiants, and the sundry smattering of civilian mages and healers from the Northgate Expedition file quietly out of the moot chamber. Their faces were solemn, their postures guarded and tense. They had experienced something terrible. Something right out of Ahran myth.
And that’s just the mess of it. They do not know how terrible it is.
“You are worried that They have found us at last. That They are already here.” Archmage Miir spoke from her shadowed perch.
“Worried with good cause,” the Loremaster said, voice breaking on the words. “All the signs are there, even if only those of us who spend too much time digging around in ancient pseudo-history would see.”
“The key,” Archmage Miir said.
Olangah nodded.
“The Cogwheel-Minds—the Mechanae—how does the rhyme go again?” Miir prompted, a dark note to her voice.
“It doesn’t rhyme if you use the proper translation,” Loremaster Olangah muttered dryly. “This is the translation I prefer, from the earliest version, Starfall Scrolls origin:
‘And the forever-void on its
Heedless patient track
Marches toward all existing things—
Cogwheel-minds, minds of flesh.
Seeking the keys to the doors
Between worlds and moons, it
Defies the stars to feast again until
All is as void as its non-being mind
And all is one in non-being.’”
Archmage Miir shook her head, expression grim. “I like the rhyming one better. It’s far less terrifying,” Miir replied.
“The Northgate is missing much of its original star-metal—over half of the truesteel ring,” Loremaster Olangah said. “Given the chain of events, I think it’s possible They’ve been here for some time.”
“This is old lore, though—the kind nobody takes seriously. Even the ones who have room for belief still assume the Kraah to be a myth,” Archmage Miir countered. “Who will believe us?”
“For one, the people from the Northgate Expedition. I meant it when I said myths all come from somewhere. Maybe…” She shook her head, frustrated. “Maybe we are the unlucky ones who live to see myths come to life.”
“Let us pray to the Source and all that is light and living that you are wrong, my dear Olangah.”
The Loremaster sighed. “I’ll be praying, all right, but I’ll also be preparing. Send your contacts among the Archmages Council to do some digging in the Ahran Archives in their regional temples. I’ll have one of my people check this soldier, Starsong, for any signs of corruption. And Archmage Miir? Be careful on the way to Duskmere. My heart is uneasy about these strange days. I need what’s in your mind to help keep us safe.”
“Please check Niamh Starsong thoroughly and alert me to any irregularities. And you know I’m always careful, Loremaster,” Archmage Miir said, a strange, tight smile on her face. “Especially when the fate of the world is on the line.”
Lizzie Sinclaire 