Caladin’s Climb—Part 37

This story was brought to you by the Tuan'diath Morph, who originally requested it. Sorry for the delay. I am in fact alive and trying to write.

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          “Why did you think that would surprise me?” Andrea’s apparition asked. “Politicians are assholes everywhere. Thinking your king was somehow different was the mistake.” Today, the form she’d chosen had pale blue skin and her hair floated around her head like a halo. It had been a few days since the attack on Fort Sumnter and Caladin was talking with her while pressing gold into coins in a lab that had been set up for him to do exactly that. It was a monotonous task, but the amount of gold that had been ejected from the golem before it fled necessitated all hands on deck. There was a massive blob of the stuff filling half the room and Caladin was seated at a desk, making coins a hundred at a time and loading them into steel chests for later collection to the treasury. Philipus didn’t have very many ferromancers, but Caladin had asked for his own space so he could talk to Andrea while he worked.

          “Careful,” Caladin replied to Andrea’s comment. “Aren’t you a politician?”

          “I’m on the city council out of spite,” Andrea answered. “That doesn’t count. I don’t play their games.”

          Caladin wasn’t sure if that was entirely true, as he thought her talking to him was probably part of some kind of “game” to accumulate power inside the city. He decided not to accuse her of anything though. “I still feel like an idiot for trusting him,” Caladin said, remembering all the nastiness he’d learned while delving into King Philipus’ memories. “He was so convincing. I actually thought he was on my side. Well… he ison my side now, so I guess it worked out. I just wish it hadn’t had to happen like that. I programmed his mind to become a paragon of virtue. Is the lesson here supposed to be that the only way to trust someone is to go inside their head and scramble their brains? I’m not sure I want to live in a world like that. I still feel nasty about the whole thing.”

          “What’s there to feel nasty about?” Andrea asked with a chuckle. “Don’t get caught up on lessons and doing the right thing. Sometimes the right thing requires getting your hands dirty, and not everything that happens needs a lesson. If it bothers you, let’s talk about something else. I want to hear more about that crown. Tell me how you figured out how to change which mode it’s in. It’s been a long time since Belorian’s reign and nobody ever even suspected there were hidden functions in that crown.”

          “I can’t take all the credit,” Caladin explained. “Brorn was the one that figured out how to drain most of the Volantus Belorian left inside it. He intentionally infected undead over a period of months until the influence of the crown was small enough to use it without losing your mind. This is the first time the crown has been functional enough to use since Belorian died.”

          “I understand the process Brorn went through. I’m just curious what you did to change it.”

          “That part was easy,” Caladin insisted. “Once it was safe to handle, all I did was read the enchantments. The instructions were right there the whole time for anyone who could read rune forms. Basically. It wasn’t quite that simple. I had to use a bit of luminomancy to enhance the surface detail before I could read it, and it was more like an essay than a normal enchantment. Once I figured out the activation phrases it was set to receive for each harmonic, I just activated them all at the same time. Now anyone who wears it becomes an instant archmage. And… uh, I think it might also grant super intelligence as a side effect.”

          “Super intelligence?” Andrea questioned. “What makes you think that?”

          “I don’t know how else to describe it,” Caladin said. “It was like my mind opened up. I could do anything. Understand everything. My perception of time even slowed down from the speed I was thinking. Every memory I’d ever experienced was open for me to draw connections between. It’s not all upsides though. The strain on my brain is lethal after only a few minutes. Which probably explains why Belorian didn’t just leave it in archmage mode all the time. That’s how I created that spell to destroy adamantium. I don’t even understand how that spell works! I tried. It’s too complicated to wrap my head around, but it was as natural as breathing while I was wearing the crown.”

          “Huh,” Andrea said as she listened. “Either it made you smarter, or you’ve gotten dumber since taking it off. Have you considered that possibility?”

          Caladin stopped his work and blinked in surprise. “No. Oh no! Did I get dumber? It did give me a massive headache. I knew I shouldn’t have cut things so close! Why wouldn’t you say something sooner?”

          Andrea put her hand over her mouth and temporarily turned her face from pale blue to a bright green as she laughed. “Ha ha! Relax! I haven’t noticed a change. I was just teasing. The look on your face though. You really that scared of a little brain damage?”

          “It’s all I have!” Caladin howled. “Without it, I’m just some guy.”

          Andrea shook her head, sending thin tendrils of hair waving through the air as though she were underwater. “No chance of that,” she assured him. “Word already got around Inside that you figured out how to dismantle adamantium and it’s causing a bit of an uproar. You might be the most famous Outsider since the guy that saved us from a thousand years of darkness.”

          “You mean my dad, right? He’s famous in Tel’Andrid?”

          “Of course he is! We’ve got statues of The Great Tony. Gold, of course.” She shrugged. “They’re not as permanent as you might think, but I suspect they’ll be around for at least a few thousand more years.”

          “That’s cool, I guess,” Caladin said. “But what’s this ‘uproar’ about me learning to destroy adamantium? When I was wearing the crown, the spell was so easy to come up with, I thought you were lying about a spell like that existing.”

          “I wasn’t,” Andrea assured him. “But the secret to destroying it wasn’t known except by a handful of masters in here. Now they’re complaining that someone else figured it out, and the material is no longer useful. The consensus is they’ll now have to design a completely new formula that won’t be vulnerable in the same way… if that’s even possible. There are actually three different colleges competing right now to come up with the most plausible explanation for how you destroyed the adamantium and how to plug that vulnerability. Personally, I think it’s the most excitement our scholars have had for ages. They don’t get many challenges anymore.”

          Caladin scratched his chin as he thought that over, then grabbed another clump of gold from the larger blob filling the back half of the room and turned it into an orderly column of circular coins, then levitated them into their lockbox. “I guess that confirms your people still have a means of spying on our world, even though I have your city in my pocket.”

          “I’ve suspected for a while that Archmage Jaeryl has been sleepwalking to the Outside. It requires a connection with someone specific, but he probably established that with Queen Fayse a long time ago. That’s why I don’t feel so bad about doing it with you. If they catch me, I’ll just threaten to expose Jaeryl. I’m the only other one that knows Queen Fayse no longer has the city.”

          “And you say you’re not a politician,” Caladin commented dryly.

          “Hey! Not fair! Scheming to stay alive doesn’t count.”

          “Sure,” Caladin agreed without much conviction. “What about the city council’s plans with Fayse? Are they still on track?”

          “I wouldn’t say ‘on track’ exactly. All but one of the original nations had a champion they were planning to send into the arena, but some self-stylized archmage went around and defeated them!”

          “Oh? That guy sounds really strong… and smart… and handsome, probably.” Caladin stuck out his tongue to show he wasn’t being serious.

          “Funny,” Andrea answered in a tone that said she didn’t actually think it was. “From what I hear, Setsya, Kreet, and Kundreil are scrambling for replacements while the guild is already formed and moving forward. There’s a bit of tension caused by Eldesia being the only one with a living champion.”

          “The dwarf’s champion wasn’t killed,” Caladin interjected. “Not completely.”

          “Semantics,” Andrea replied. “He was an artificer, not a fighter, and you broke his creation. The point is, you’ve caused some tension, but the result will be less competition this year. You’re the only serious contender that hasn’t agreed to the new rules of this council, and the member nations are going to be working together for the first time ever to keep threatening contestants away. No chaos this year. Only order and discipline. This is your best chance to throw your hat in, though I’ll warn you, they’ll be looking to keep you from reaching the arena.”

          “You’re assuming I’m interested,” Caladin replied. “That was Philipus’ plan, not mine. I know how dangerous wishes can be. Why would I take a risk like that when I already have all the power I need?”

          “Spoken like a true archmage,” Andrea said with pride. She frowned after a second. “But someone is going to make a wish. You sure you’re not worried about that? I think Eldesia is planning to erase your entire nation from existence. You included.”

          Caladin imagined what it would be like to be erased from existence by the unbridled power of the Conflux. That didn’t seem like something he could defend against. He groaned. “Ugh. I’m going to have to get involved, aren’t I?”

          “I think you have to. I mean, I won’t twist your arm, but if you don’t, I hope you have a plan to stop a Conflux wish, otherwise you should start getting your affairs in order.”

          “Could I win, then just refuse to make a wish?” Caladin asked. “Between wishes going awry and the Conflux itself annihilating champions, actually using the Conflux just seems foolish.”

          Andrea’s apparition shrugged. “I don’t see any reason that wouldn’t work. The arena will recognize only the winner, but if you refuse to enter the Conflux, it’s not like it will let someone else in. Makes no difference to me what you do, as long as you screw up Jaeryl’s plan.”

          Caladin chuckled. “Are you really that vindictive?”

          “It’s not about being vindictive,” Andrea insisted. “It’s about people being left alone to live their lives. I hate when people meddle.”

          “Aren’t you meddling right now? This is meddling, isn’t it? Talking to me?”

          She shook her head. “What aren’t you getting about this? Meddling to stop meddling isn’t the same thing! How many ways do I have to say this? I’m just trying to stop other people from doing something bad.” She waved a hand. “Whatever. We don’t need to discuss my motivations. You’ll understand them if you ever get to my age.”

          Andrea’s outlook on life reminded Caladin of a more extreme version of Necro-King Brorn. For all his power, he just wanted to be left alone. For all Andrea’s power, she just wanted to make sure other people were left alone. “And what age is that, exactly?” Caladin asked.

          Andrea crossed her arms. “How rude! You are never supposed to ask a lady her age! Have you no manners?”

          “You brought it up,” Caladin objected. “I was just curious. Tel’Andrid is the City of Magi. I thought people lived forever in there.”

          “Not forever,” Andrea said. “But very long. All races age. It’s just that the more magical races like eldrin, aurai and evanesor can be healed indefinitely. The older races, like humans and dwarves, get diminishing returns on magic.”

          “Diminishing returns? What do you mean?”

          “I assume you’ve heard that eldrin live forever?” Andrea asked.

          Caladin nodded. “And Necro-King Brorn. I know he’s pretty ancient, but I have no idea what race he was originally. Since he swaps bodies around, age isn’t really a factor for him.”

          “Sure,” Andrea agreed. “What you have to understand is that the concept you think of as ‘old age’ isn’t real. What is old age when you get down to it? It’s just your body breaking down. When it kills you, it’s always something specific, like your heart giving out, or your kidneys failing.”

          “That makes sense,” Caladin agreed.

          “So, most civilized people get magical healing from time to time. Even on the Outside, as far as I’m aware. When things start to fail, they will go to a healer and get it fixed. The heart will never go out if you heal it, same for the kidneys and every other part of the body. We don’t really think twice about it, but the only way to die of ‘old age’ would be to let yourself die by never seeing a healer when you start to have problems. For humans, the healing gets less effective over time. Eventually, there is nothing that can be done. I think the oldest we can get one of you to last is about three hundred years, but a few have made it pretty close to three-fifty.”

          “That’s stupid,” Caladin said. “We’re the only ones like that?”

          Andrea laughed. “Humans and dwarves, though dwarves last quite a bit longer. What can I say? That’s just life. You don’t get to pick what body you’re born into.”

          “You’re sure nothing can be done about it?” Caladin pressed.

          “Not unless you have a proclivity for necromancy and are comfortable becoming a lich,” Andrea said. Caladin made a face, letting her know what he thought of that. Brorn had always said Caladin would change his mind when he got old enough. He still wasn’t convinced a life of swapping between bodies and losing pieces of his identity was something he’d ever be comfortable with. “It’s only natural to never want to die,” Andrea continued. “But don’t think even the magical races live forever just because we can keep healing ourselves. Disease and organ failure are just one potential cause of death. We can still have fatal accidents. You know what the leading cause of death is in Tel’Andrid?”

          Caladin shrugged as he filled another chest with the last stack of coins, then waved it aside to open the next empty chest. The work really would be intolerably boring without Andrea to talk to. “Uh, I’ll guess murder,” he said. “You still have murder, don’t you?”

          “Of course we do. But nobody ever gets away with it, and the punishment is death. It does still happen occasionally regardless. You’re wrong though, murder is third. First is falling. Either off balconies or down steps. Believe it or not, some people die getting in or out of the bath. We can fix anything short of nearly instant death, but when most surfaces are made of gold tripping down the stairs because you were a little too drunk can easily snap a neck.”

          “Hmm,” Caladin said. “That still seems unfair to me. At least you don’t have to live every moment of your life with your inevitable death looming over you. You really mean to tell me that nobody has ever come up with a healing spell that can extend the lives of humans indefinitely?”

          “I would have heard of it if they had,” Andrea said. “No chance that wouldn’t be big news. There are always a few humans working on the problem, and they have as many resources as any other research group.”

          Caladin stopped his monotonous coin minting to take a sip of water. When he was done, he reached into one of his enchanted pockets to pull out Belorian’s crown. “I bet I could figure it out,” he told Andrea. “It would probably only take me a few minutes if I used this crown.”

          “Oh? Are you going to let me watch you use it?”

          “Why not?” Caladin said. “Super intelligence and full mastery of all magic would probably make the problem trivial to solve. I’ll just have to be sure to come up with a solution before the brain death kills me.”

          “Becoming an archmage isn’t supposed to kill your brain,” Andrea commented. “We have three in the city right now, and their brains are perfectly healthy.”

          “They say there’s no substitute for hard work, but this crown is doing exactly that. If it didn’t cost anything to use, it would probably violate some indelible law of the universe. Like some kind of cosmic revenge for doing things the easy way.” Caladin laughed. When he said it out loud, it sounded as irrational as it was sensible. It almost seemed fair. “But normal archmages probably don’t get super intelligence. I think it’s probably worth it. I’ll be quick. Is there anything you can tell me about the past efforts to solve the human immortality problem? I won’t have long before the brain damage becomes irreversible, so any extra information I can get now would be immensely helpful.”

          “Uh, I probably shouldn’t even tell you this, but there have been some moderately successful attempts,” Andrea said. “The longest trial attempted created modified humans we called damphirs. They’re banned now, but they were different from liches, like Necro-King Brorn, since they stayed in their original body.” She tapped her chin thoughtfully, eyes looking up and away as she thought about it. “Sorry, it’s been a while since I learned about them. From what I remember, they used a combination of healing magic and necromancy. The human soul is the problem, you see. For a while, they were using the souls of other humans that were already dying to replace what was being lost in the damphirs. They kept really stringent records for over a thousand years before calling the experiment a failure. Apparently, the personalities of all the subjects changed so much in that time period that they were unrecognizable as the original human that started out. The theory was they were absorbing the personalities of the donors whose souls they were consuming to stay alive. Does that make sense?”

          “It does, unfortunately,” Caladin said. “I’m not interested in extending my life by feeding on the souls of others, so don’t worry. If I can’t find a fair and permanent means of doing it, we’ll just forget the whole thing.” He took a breath and nodded. “Okay, here I go.” With that, Caladin placed Belorian’s Crown back on his head for the first time in several days.

          Fire coursed through Caladin’s brain. Immediately, he could tell he hadn’t waited long enough since his last use of the crown. He wasn’t yet recovered from the damage he’d accumulated last time, and magic couldn’t be used to accelerate the process. The immediate consequences of this lack of recovery time was that Caladin knew he wouldn’t have as much time with the crown as his last use. He activated the same regeneration spell to heal his brain as much as possible, then got right to work on the problem of human immortality.

          His challenge was to extend human life without fundamentally changing who that person was over time. His mind swirled with possibilities. A more powerful healing spell? No. The power of the healing wasn’t the issue, it was the soul that was the limiting factor. He could see that now. The soul told the magic what was “correct” and when it stopped reporting that information as accurately, no amount of healing could compensate. The soul was the limiting factor. What about a spell to create an artificial soul out of mana and graft it onto the original? No. Over time, that would result in an empty husk of a person. Much like the empty husk of Jenny, who had killed her own mother for the simple reason that she had no reason not to.

          Caladin tried to tackle the problem from a different angle. What was it that made the other races able to be immortal? He created a custom combination spell using astramancy to allow him to see the elements of Andrea’s soul through the projection she was using. Her projection in the real world wasn’t able to be studied, as it was only a projection in his mind, but since he was Sleep Walking, Caladin could see her real dream self with half his mind. That dream self was based on her real self enough that he could easily extrapolate the contents of her genuine soul. What he discovered was that her soul was made of a matrix of soul and magic. The magic element was what could be modified and repaired without issue, and it acted as an insulating layer around the inner core of soul.

          Though he was tempted to try to explain to Andrea that there was actually a limit to her soul’s ability to regenerate, he didn’t want to waste the time talking. His thoughts were flying too fast to be slowed down enough to be understood by others. In studying Andrea’s soul, Caladin found it had just as much a hard limit as a human soul. He used his dream to generate models of different souls that he could interact with. They weren’t real, but his understanding of necromancy and real world meta-physics was sufficient to make them function accurately. He used the imaginary souls as practice, tearing them apart and throwing a variety of spells at them in ways he wouldn’t dare on a real soul to learn about their limitations. In his dream, Caladin could force his model souls to rapidly age a thousand years in a second. What he found was that the magic matrix protecting the souls would only work so long as they were continually replenished with mana, but that had a limit. The matrix was not perfectly replenished with mana. It, too, would eventually weaken. Once it failed, the soul within would become like that of a human. It would be unable to hold within it a large volume of mana, and then it would begin to age at the rate of a human’s. Despite Andrea’s reluctance to give him her age, Caladin was able to calculate it from his models, based on the level of degradation in her soul’s mana matrix. She was 257 years old, and based on the models he built of her soul, she would live to the ripe age of 4,239 before her soul gave out and she died like a human. If he assumed she represented a typical magical race, that meant 4,000 years was likely a good average. If Tel’Andrian’s still believed that magical races were immortal, that told Caladin their city was younger than 4,000. If they’d been around to witness some of their oldest citizens reach those ages and die, they would have already adjusted their aging models.

          Despite the limitations of magical souls, they still far exceeded those of a human soul. Caladin at least try to figure out a way to extend human lives to that of their peers. The magic matrix was the key. Was it possible to artificially construct a magic matrix for an existing human soul? No. Not without doing untold damage to the original soul. A matrix could be created, but large sections of the original soul would need to be hollowed out to make room for an artificial matrix that they weren’t born with. And the process would inevitably corrupt the soul with necromancy, if it even survived the procedure at all. On a case-by-case basis, Caladin thought he could study an individual soul and create a matrix that would perfectly mimic the sections it was replacing, but he deemed that method barbaric and unacceptable. It would be tantamount to killing the subject and replacing them with an artificial duplicate that believed it was the same person. Caladin couldn’t delude himself that anything less would be required. Huge swaths of personality and memory encoding would need to be overwritten. It was impossible to say what that would do to their growth and development, and would be unethical to carry out experiments in the real world.

          What Caladin needed was a way to rebuild a soul without taking away anything from the original. He considered carving out the removed sections of soul to store in an artifact. That way they’d still be available, and not destroyed… but, no. The removed sections would be just as vulnerable to degradation regardless of container. They would age piecemeal, nothing would change. That defeated the purpose of both the aging spell and all the bother of saving the removed sections of soul. Not to mention the damage repeatedly using necromancy on a soul would do over time.

          Maybe his entire approach was wrong. Maybe he could come up with a new method of rejuvenating the soul that didn’t require a protective matrix. He tried a hundred variations on a dream-made soul model. A thousand. Nothing worked. Try as he might, necromancy was incapable of repairing damage. It could cut, slice, burn, and bind, but any attempt at repair would require rebuilding the damaged section. Doing so would replace it with a necromantic copy of a soul. In time, that would warp the personality of the subject. As natural damage accumulated, more and more of the original soul would need to be replaced until it was all shaped necromancy mana enchanted to act like a soul. He couldn’t say what effect that would have, but he doubted they would still be the same person they’d originally been when the process was complete. When there was no real soul left, they would become like one of Brorn’s mindless zombies unless they were willing to eat pieces of other souls to compensate and take on aspects of those personalities. He thought that’s probably what Brorn was doing to keep himself alive indefinitely. No, no, no. That wouldn’t do. If Caladin wanted to solve the problem—truly solve it—he realized he would need to use pure, unshaped mana.

          There was only one problem. It was a fundamental nature of spells that by acting on mana, the spell shaped it. Any manipulation of pure mana to guide its effect would by definition shape it. Shaped mana would leave an imprint on a soul, but he needed to shape it to implement it into a soul without a deleterious effect. It was a recursive web of cause and effect that couldn’t be escaped. No matter what he called it, any direction on pure mana to encourage it to make a change to a soul would give it a shape recognizable as necromancy.

          The crown continued to burn away at Caladin’s mind. He didn’t have long—two seconds at most—and he’d met nothing but dead ends. Andrea’s face was still pulling back in fear as she looked beside her where the rapid flurry of dream-made soul copies had been created by Caladin’s imagination and then summarily destroyed in rapid succession. She was moving in slow motion from Caladin’s perspective. He would have used chronomancy to extend the duration of his crown use even more, but that was pointless. Just as using mana shaped it into something that couldn’t help him achieve immortality, the only time that mattered when it came to the crown was Caladin’s local perception. If he made time outside his tiny bubble pass at 1/100th its usual speed, he would still only have two more seconds before the crown would begin accumulating permanent damage to his brain. He almost removed the crown early and just gave up on the whole prospect, but then he connected a fact he’d never realized the significance of. Mana wells. He’d been around them before. They composed of so-called “pure” mana, and yet they affected the world around them. They could burn people that stood in them too long, or degrade objects left exposed to them. Even the light they emitted had a measurable impact on the world around them. Whatever impact they had on the world around them was done in the absence of any harmonic resonance being impressed on them by a conscious mind. A beam of focused mana could even cut through stone. That was how mana wells burrowed through the ground in the first place!

          It wasn’t impossible. If pure mana could do all that, Caladin knew it was possible for it to do something to a soul. Though his mind buckled to the limits of his endurance as another second ticked away, Caladin forced himself to hold out while he thought through this last thread to every end. Pure mana could be manipulated. The key was only in doing so in a way that imbued it with no conscious intentions. Was that even possible? Of course. Was it possible to do while forcing the mana to actually do something useful? Maybe. Maybe not with human hands, but he thought maybe he could make a machine to do it for him. The complexity of the task boggled even his expanded mind, but he thought it was possible… in theory… barely. It would be equivalent to re-inventing magic all over again, but he thought he could design a machine that allowed mana to flow through it, then could force it to combine in specific ways to create a chosen outcome he could program, but which would not compel intention on the mana that passed through it. An unthinking machine, that he would control with programmed input that would be so precise in their direction, timing, and effect as to force unshaped mana to behave like shaped mana.

          Caladin wasn’t even entirely sure this dream of his was possible. That would require testing in every way that raw mana could affect both the world and existing enchantments. He would need to determine through testing what the fundamental elements of mana were, then manipulate those elements with a machine. It would be like creating a mechanical brain. If he was successful, not only would he be able to manipulate pure mana, but anything that could do that could also create new matter from mana, or mana out of matter. It was nothing less than the power of a god.

          With that last burst of divine vanity, the strain of the crown overwhelmed Caladin. He inscribed a list of instructions on one of the papers in his pocket for his less enlightened self to follow later as he was forced to throw off the crown.

          “That was boring,” Andrea commented. “You just sat there with your eyes closed, then got a nosebleed. I saw some flashes next to me for a second, but I think those were coming from the dream.”

          “Sorry,” Caladin said, wiping the blood from his nose. “That was me too. I learned… something. It’s already fading, but I got an idea. I know what I need. I need to build a device that can manipulate pure mana without shaping it.”

          “What? Did you get distracted? I thought you were trying to come up with a solution to human mortality.”

          “I was,” Caladin assured her. “That’s where it led. I don’t remember exactly why, but to solve immortality, you need to solve the problem of shaped mana.”

          “That makes no sense,” Andrea said. “Shaped mana isn’t even a problem! Least of all for an archmage.”

          “I don’t know what to say. I just know it’s the key. More of it will come back to me in a bit. As soon as I get over this splitting headache.” He gripped his forehead in his hands and pressed against his skull mercilessly. He knew it didn’t actually do anything to help, but it was the closest he could get to feeling like the headache was being managed. All he wanted to do was crawl out of his own body and go hide in a corner until his brain stopped objecting to its mistreatment. That wasn’t an option, though, so he powered through the pain. “Also, you should know that you’re not immortal.”

          “Sorry, what?” Andrea asked. “Now I know you’re losing it. We can observe our immortality. It’s not even up for debate.”

          “Not infinite,” Caladin said through gritted teeth. “Buffer… degradation. Sorry, I lost it. Trust me, you’re not immortal. Your soul has an upper limit, even with healing. It’s just… 4,000? Yeah, I think it’s 4,000 years.”

          Andrea arched an eyebrow at that. “4,000 years, huh? Well, Archmage Jaeryl is well into his 3,000s and he seems to be doing fine.”

          “Ask him if his mana pool has reduced in his old age. The details are fuzzy, but that was a sign. The mana pool gets smaller, then it goes away completely. That’s how you know the soul is reaching its limit.”

          Andrea smiled, the skin of her face turning the anemic white of an eldrin. Her ears even narrowed to points like an eldrin, though her hair stayed blue. “So you’re saying if I’m patient, Jaeryl will die? I can be patient. I can be very patient.”

          “It might not be so simple,” Caladin warned her. “If he’s as crafty as you say he is, he could find a workaround to give himself more time. There are many—” Someone knocked at the door to Caladin’s work room. “Hold that thought,” Caladin whispered to Andrea. “Come in!” he called.

          “It was your thought, not mine,” Andrea complained in Caladin’s mind as an eldrin messenger cracked open the door.

          The messenger had a face known to Caladin and wore the blue-striped uniform of one of Philipus’s soldiers. Caladin glanced self-consciously at the loose pile of filled chests he’d accumulated. The empty chests were still stacked neatly against the wall to his right. He’d barely gotten through a fifth of the provided chests in the last several hours of work. “Sorry,” he said to the messenger, “I’m probably not working as fast as I should. I’ve been distracted.”

          The messenger bowed his head politely. “I am not here to supervise your work, sir. I have a message from King Philipus Haedril.”

          “Is he in the throne room?” Caladin asked. The eldrin messenger nodded. “And does he want to speak with me?” Caladin asked next.

          “Well, yes, but—” the messenger stammered.

          Caladin just shook his head. “Then I don’t need to hear everything twice,” he said. “You are excused.”

          “But I—”

          The messenger’s voice cut off suddenly when Caladin triggered a vocomancy scroll in his pocket and teleported to the throne room. King Philipus was sitting on his throne. He smiled warmly when he saw Caladin appear. He wasn’t sure if it was just confirmation bias, but Caladin felt like his smile of late was just a bit warmer than it used to be.

          “Caladin!” the king greeted him with a wave to cut off the uniformed general that had been speaking to him. “So good to see you. How has the coin minting been going? As easy as you suspected?”

          Caladin grimaced involuntarily. “Er, it’s not difficult, but it is rather monotonous. I can’t help but think it’s not suitable to my temperament. I thought it would go faster, but I can only make a few hundred coins at a time. At the pace I’m going, it might be more efficient for me to design an enchanted artifact to do the work for me.”

          “Don’t bother,” King Philipus replied. “I am sure the other ferromancers can handle the workload while you are gone. Did you want to leave immediately?”

          Not listening to that messenger was catching up to him. “Sorry, leave for what?” Caladin asked.

          The king cocked his head to the side slightly. “Did you not come here because of my messenger?”

          “Not exactly,” Caladin said, which was technically true while not admitting he’d blinked away before listening to the message. He didn’t want to admit to being overly hasty when he was sure everyone already looked down on him for being so young.

          “Oh, my mistake. I assumed you were here about my message.” The king patted the officer next to him on the shoulder. “Kendris, do you think you could go after Lerien and tell him that Caladin is already here? I’d hate to think he’s running around trying to track him down.”

          The officer nodded and marched off promptly. Great. Now he and that messenger would compare notes and realize what an idiot Caladin was being to waste both of their time and it was all because Philipus had become so damn nice to everyone! His new personality was getting on Caladin’s nerves and rumors had started to circulate that something was wrong with him. That he wasn’t acting like himself since the golem attack. No. Caladin couldn’t let him go down that path. It didn’t matter how “effective” the old Philipus had been. He was a monster, and Caladin refused to acknowledge that it was a mistake to overwrite his mind. “Why don’t you just tell me what this message was,” Caladin prompted.

          “It was Queen Fayse’s council.” Philipus said. “They asked to meet to discuss peace terms and I’ve accepted. I was hoping you’d agree to come with me, as each leader will be allowed a single representative to attend them for security.”

          While that news in and of itself wasn’t too shocking—as Caladin knew the king had been exchanging messages with Fayse since the dwarven golem was destroyed—what he found surprising was the way the king had referred to his rival. “Queen” Fayse, not “the Usurper” Fayse, or “my brother’s whore”, or the simply “that bitch”. Never before had Caladin heard the king refer to her by her chosen title. A small change, certainly, but he couldn’t say for sure how significant it was. While Caladin could no longer remember the specifics of the enchantments he’d placed on the king’s mind, he knew he’d prioritized Philipus wanting to keep his people safe. He hadn’t considered downstream effects on things like his hatred for his enemies. The king was still talking and Caladin had to play catch-up to remember what he was saying. “Sorry, can you repeat that last part?” he asked. “Something about meeting in neutral territory?”

          Philipus frowned. “Is that going to be a problem? I understand if it is, given your history. Galeonis volunteered to attend with me if you were unwilling. If anything goes awry, he is more than capable of blinking me to safety.”

          “Why would I not want to come?” Caladin asked. History? What history did he—

          “Because the other rulers have agreed to meet at the manor of Necro-King Brorn,” the king supplied. Caladin’s heart dropped into his stomach. He tried to keep his composure, but Philipus’s reaction showed he’d failed in that regard. “Oh dear,” the king said. “I was afraid you might have reservations. I tried to request a different location, you understand. They were insistent. A neutral location where all parties could be assured no traps would be laid was of tantamount importance. All other locations would fall under the jurisdiction of one of us or another. Brorn still enjoys sovereignty, so long as he stays confined to the boundaries outlined in his treaty with Setsya. Where else would you have us meet? Lasting peace is the goal of all parties.”

          “I’m sure the fact that Brorn vowed to murder me specifically for betraying him didn’t factor into their decision, did it?” Caladin asked. “You realize they will almost certainly be planning some kind of ambush that will involve me not being there to defend you, don’t you?”

          “Why would they do that, when we’ve agreed to meet in peace? The Necro-King has promised to enforce the peace. If a conflict erupts at the manor, the aggressor will forfeit their soul to Brorn. I believe it will be a strong deterrent to conflict.”

          “And what about Brorn?” Caladin asked. “Who will keep him in line?”

          The king blinked. How could be suddenly be so naïve? “I suppose the rest of us together will do that. He is only a single wizard.”

          Caladin sucked in a deep breath before giving his answer. “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but… I’ll go with you.”

          “You will? How delightful!”

          Caladin shook his head, thinking of all the ways this could go wrong. “They chose that location specifically to try to box me out. I can’t wait to see the looks on their faces when I show up anyway.” Even if I have to face my old master to do it, Caladin thought to himself with no small measure of regret.

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