Lightline
An hour later, the group was on the road and headed south towards the Golden Hold. The warm spring air was thick with humidity and the scent of blooming flowers. The morning dew still clung to the grass and flower petals, and now that they were out of the city, Brandon was struck with the serenity of it all. He breathed deep, and willed the frustration and fear to leave his body.
They passed over the crest of a hill and Plum drew her wand, quickly dispelling the glamour over herself and Brandon. Brandon breathed a sigh of relief as Plum’s familiar form appeared, and he smiled softly. She flushed, ever so slightly, and then looked away.
“I have a question,” Willam said suddenly from behind Brandon. “How are we meant to travel to the demesne of House Citrine in a single day? ‘Tis at least two full day’s walk.”
“Who said aught about walking?” Liana snarked. “We have other means of traveling.”
“I assumed,” Willam replied defensively. “But I expected horses or the like.”
Liana scoffed. “You truly are ignorant, Willy,” she said. Willam closed his eyes and took a deep, calming breath, but said nothing.
“I shall get us most of the way in moments,” Liana continued. “Once we get to the waystation.”
“Waystation?” Brandon asked, his own curiosity now piqued.
“You as well, Vermillion?” Liana asked. Brandon could practically hear her eyebrow cock. “I’d’ve thought that a Prince-Adept and dyadic magician would know of the lightlines.”
“I… have not,” Brandon admitted sheepishly.
“Typical rose house foolishness,” Liana replied, waving a hand dismissively. “‘Tis just like your lot to ignore the importance of the true histories.” Brandon flushed.
“I know of them,” Plum snapped before Brandon could answer. She’d been quiet so far, but Brandon noted a flash of anger behind her eyes as she continued. “They were static spells that allowed instantaneous travel across the First Radiance’s empire, strategically scattered near most of the major settlements.”
“Almost correct,” Liana said, nodding. “But for one detail. You spoke of them in the past tense.”
“The Magisterial records clearly state that the lightlines were destroyed by the Lightless during the Second Darkening.”
“And the Magisterium famously never lies.” Liana laughed, mean-spirited, and Plum’s gaze darkened further.
“Most of the lightlines were destroyed, yes,” Liana continued. “And, as if our lives were not difficult enough, few magicians are capable of utilizing them to their fullest.” She grinned, and Brandon was reminded of a wolf with a fresh kill. “Fortunately for us, you happen to be in the presence of one of the few.”
“You can use the lightlines?” Brandon asked.
“Indeed,” Liana answered haughtily. “Their use requires dusk magic, and I happen to be one of the brightest.” Brandon nodded—Liana being a blue and yellow dyadic magic made sense to him.
“So the First Radiance created a magical transportation network using dyadic magic,”
Brandon mused. “‘Tis the second time since coming here that I have heard of His association with dyadic magic.”
“There’s a lot the Magisterium suppresses about the early days of the empire,” Theoderic added.
“And,” Liana continued. “One of the ruins that holds a lightline circle happens to be but a few hours’ walk from Algaran.”
“There’s a reason we decided to build our headquarters here,” Theoderic said gruffly. “There’s only four working lightline waystations that we know of. One is here,” he said, holding up a finger each time. “One is at Adrail, and one near the Golden Hold.”
“Where is the last?” Brandon asked.
Theoderic hesitated. “The Vermillion Keep,” he answered. “Or near the Keep, at least.”
“So we need not have walked, after all,” Plum commented quietly.
Theoderic barked out a laugh. “Aye, probably not,” he said. “Laszlo could’ve brought you through, if you’d left with him.”
“My feet would have appreciated that knowledge a few days ago,” said Plum dryly.
“Regardless, we shall be there soon,” Liana interrupted. “And I shall get us to the waystation near the Hold in mere moments.” Brandon noticed a look of frustration on her face when the conversation was focused on someone else.
“That seems a very useful tool in our arsenal,” Brandon said to Liana. Perhaps a touch of flattery will make her less venomous, he thought.
“Indeed!” she answered, beaming. “The Law would not be half as successful ‘twere it not for our use of the lightlines.”
“Then I am glad you are on our side.”
Liana scoffed and rolled her eyes, but the smile did not fully fade from her face.
The rest of the walk to the waystation passed peacefully. Brandon spent it mostly chatting with Liana, trying to get through her shell.
He and Liana were walking side by side in silence, and they turned around a small bend in the road. Theoderic trudged on ahead, and Plum hovered just behind Brandon and Liana with Willy. Brandon glanced back at Plum and Willy, and then moved a bit closer to Liana so they could talk a touch more privately.
“Miss Grace,” he asked softly. “Can I ask you something?”
She rolled her eyes. “If you must.”
“What happened with Willy?”
Liana scoffed. “I should have known you would ask after that,” she said, and then sighed.
“He is my cousin,” Brandon said defensively. “I’d know how he wronged you, if you please.”
Liana smirked. “Fair enough. Tell me, Prince-Adept, have you any idea how it feels to discover aught about yourself that turns your entire world upside-down? I mean to say, more than just dyadic magic, but something more… fundamental.”
Brandon smiled wryly. “I do,” he said. You have no idea.
“As do I,” Liana answered. “My parents were… I was raised a noble, same as you. Not quite as high-ranking, mind, but my father is a baron under House Azure, and so I lived a rather privileged life. I had access to all of the books and tutors a budding young blue magician could ask for.
“My mother was a peasant, by birth. I grew up with my father’s stories of how he saw her tending to the cows in the pastures outside of our castle, and how he was ‘captivated by her beauty’ and all that. They fell in love, got married, had me, and the rest is history, as they say.” She grimaced. “The truth is rarely so… romantic,” she said, and sighed.
“My mother fell ill while Willy and I were at the Cathedral. I traveled home to visit her before she passed, and on her deathbed I learned the truth.” She grimaced again, and hesitated.
“You do not have to keep going, if ‘tis painful,” Brandon said.
“I’ve already started, have I not?” Liana snapped, and then huffed. “I shall finish, just… a moment, please.”
Brandon fell silent, and they walked together quietly for a few minutes.
“As it turns out,” Liana continued eventually. “‘Twas not some noble love story that brought my parents together. My father saw a pretty peasant girl, raped her, and then married her under threat of execution for ‘tempting’ him.” She let out a sardonic laugh. “And I came to find out that this is all too common. My mother was one of the lucky ones, truly, for my father married her and raised her to title, instead of simply having her murdered, babe and all.
“Do you know the worst part, Prince-Adept?” she asked. Her voice was like the cold knife of an assassin, and she continued before Brandon could reply. “My mother told me on her deathbed that she did not ‘fall ill’ and waste away. She found out she was pregnant with my father’s child again and she poisoned herself rather than carry it to term.” Her mouth had formed a hard line, and now her lip curled in a snarl.
“I came back to Adrail furious with every nobleman,” she said the word with such hate that Brandon physically flinched. “That would dare to claim a position of privilege while they let their peers be monsters. ‘Tis why I joined the Law. Willam is…” she hesitated. “He does not understand,” she finished eventually.
“Did you try?” Brandon asked, and Liana frowned.
“I tried with others,” she said. “None of them understand. Willam used the fact that he was born with a title and a cock just like any other nobleman.”
“I think,” Brandon said slowly. “That you should speak with him about this.”
“What is the point?” Liana asked, and she sounded more exhausted than anything. “I do not think he could understand.”
“Willy may surprise you,” Brandon said. “You should ask him about someone named Olivier, and see if your opinion of him changes.”
Liana did not reply.
“Thank you for telling me,” Brandon said after a moment. “I am sure that that was not an easy story to tell.”
Liana fell silent for a moment. “Thank you for listening,” she said. “Something about you is… different from all the other noblemen I have met.”
Brandon laughed. “You have no idea.”
It only took another hour or so to reach the waystation. It didn’t look like much to Brandon. It was little more than a pile of rubble, though it showed the promise of having once been a larger and more impressive structure. The stone it was made of, though, did stand out, even to Brandon’s untrained eye.
The stone reminded Brandon of the marble that adorned the Vermillion Keep. It was off-white, but what really caught the eye were the swirls of color through it. The color was pale and layered over with dust and age, but made intricate patterns of bluish-grey, pale red, and a sandy yellow color. The three colors swirled and flowed together, in a way that seemed to Brandon like it should seem gaudy and clashing. Somehow, though, it didn’t, and Brandon again thought of the tapestry of the First Radiance casting triadic magic in Laszlo’s office.
“Right then,” Theoderic said as they approached. “Here we are.”
“Where is it?” Willam asked, looking suspiciously at the pile of rubble.
“Inside,” Theoderic answered simply, and continued towards the pile of rubble.
Brandon glanced at Willam and, with a shrug, followed after Theoderic. He followed him around the back side of the ruin, and they came upon a pile of stacked rubble. Theoderic gestured to Liana, who drew her wand. Brandon thought that her wand was surprisingly simple. It was a straight rod of some kind of horn or bone, completely unadorned but for a strip of white cloth to act as a grip.
Liana quickly drew a sigil—second position, just like Plum—and the pile of rubble became translucent, like fog. An illusion. Behind it was a set of stairs leading downward, which Theoderic took wordlessly.
Theoderic waved a hand—come to think of it, Brandon had never seen him use a wand, or primary magic at all—and there was a flutter of red mana as the glowlamps on the wall, previously hidden in shadow, lit up. Brandon felt immediately at ease—he’d forgotten how calming and familiar the warm light of a glowlamp was to him.
The interior of the ruin was somehow even more in disrepair than the exterior. Rubble and dirt were piled in the surprisingly large room, and there were several gaps in the ceiling where it had fallen in. Brandon’s first thought was that it was a miracle that the glowlamps were still intact, but on a closer look, they were clearly much newer.
The center of the room was dominated by a large dais. The round platform was raised a foot or two off the ground, and was made not out of the stone of the rest of the ruins, but out of a metal that Brandon didn’t recognize. It was startlingly white, and it reflected the light of the glowlamps in a way that seemed subtly off to Brandon in a way he couldn’t place. Etched into its surface were what looked to be dozens of magical sigils, overlapping and interlocking with each other in complex ways.
Plum gasped, and stepped to the dais. “‘Tis marvelous,” she said softly, tracing one of the sigils with her finger. “Each of these spells is complex enough alone to take weeks of study.”
“Now you see why we have not made more,” Liana said, stepping forward. “‘Twould take years of study to have a chance even at understanding the sigils.”
Plum nodded, still tracing the same sigil with her finger.
“How does it work?” Brandon asked.
“To be honest,” Liana answered. “We are not fully sure. As best we can tell, it somehow breaks the body down into pure yellow mana, and transfers that mana to another waystation. It uses blue mana to transfer your mind in the same way, and then the other waystation reassembles it all back together.”
Plum nodded. “This sigil seems to be part of the transportation part of the spell, but the complexity of it…” she trailed off.
“Indeed.”
Theoderic stepped up on to the dais and gestured for the rest of the group to follow. The dais was probably large enough to hold at least a dozen people, if they were willing to press together, so the five magicians could easily stand together.
“Are we all ready?” Liana asked, sheathing her wand.
“What will it feel like?” Willam asked, and Liana scoffed.
“‘Twill feel like nothing. You will be aware of the travel, somewhat, but ‘twill feel more like a dream, and then we will be there. I will need to borrow some blue mana from each of you, though. Actually, with this many people, some additional yellow would be helpful as well…” she trailed off, and then glanced at Brandon. “Perhaps our dawn friend could assist?”
Brandon flushed, but nodded. “I believe I can,” he said. “I could draw red mana from all of you and channel it into my barrier. That should give you some yellow to draw.”
Liana nodded. “Yes, that should suffice. I would recommend we sit for this part, then.”
The five magicians sat in a circle, the two familiars on their magicians laps, and with a quick confirmation that everyone was ready , Brandon began. He reached out to his dawn magic, and pushed out with his barrier.
He quickly reached the limits of what his own red mana could provide, and so he grasped out with his power. The red mana of his companions burned faintly at the edge of his perception. It felt like trying to sense the warmth of a candle from across the room—this had never been his strong suit.
He focused on Plum, to his left. Her candle burned the brightest of the four, and its warmth was… familiar. Brandon furrowed his brow, and tried to reach out and grab that warmth. Unbidden, his mind went to his nights spent with Plum, their bodies entangled and pressed together. He tried to feel her warmth as if they were back at home, in his room in the Keep. That made him think of the kiss, and—
Plum’s mana collided with his. He felt a rush of energy as she poured into him like a bucket into a cup of water. Her mana was far more than he could handle, and it rushed out into his barrier, which grew more solid and opaque. Plum’s mana enveloped him, and he felt her presence. It felt… intimate, as though her arms were wrapped around him and his around her. He dimly heard her gasp, and then he felt a familiar tingle in his mind as Liana began drawing blue mana from the group.
Brandon’s vision blurred, and then dimmed. He felt his body growing weak and limp, and then suddenly he was gone.
Brandon felt as though he were floating in an infinite void. There was nothing near him, and he couldn’t even feel his own body. He began to panic, but then he noticed a familiar warmth. He could still feel Plum’s mana, wrapped around his very essence.
There was a lurch, and a flash of light, and Brandon gasped as he was returned to his body.
He couldn’t see anything, and almost began to panic again as a wave of exhaustion washed through him. He felt a hand grasping for him—a physical one, and a familiar one. Plum took his hand and squeezed it, and Brandon blinked heavily as another glowlamp winked on.
He saw that they were in a room similar to the one they’d left, but in much better repair. It was actually solid, and the earlier lack of vision seemed to have been just a lack of light. The dais they were on was nearly identical, and the swirled marble still made up the room. The group was sitting in a circle exactly as they had been when they left the previous waystation, and Brandon breathed a sigh of relief.
Theoderic and Liana seemed more or less unbothered, but Plum and Willam looked as winded as Brandon felt. The travel had been… uncomfortable, but there didn’t seem to be any permanent consequences. On second thought, Brandon’s exhaustion was probably more due to his dawn magic than the travel spell itself.
Plum looked unsettled, but simultaneously amazed. “That was… exhilarating!” she said after a moment, and then turned to Brandon excitedly. “Did you feel that, Ad- love? We… connected, somehow.”
“I did,” Brandon answered. “It felt like our mana connected, and you fed my dawn magic.”
Liana nodded from across the dais. “Yes, I noticed that you did not have to draw red mana from the rest of us.” She raised an eyebrow. “Curious,” she continued. “I’ve not seen such a thing.”
“I have,” Theoderic said. “When dyadic magicians share a color, they can sometimes exchange mana directly. It usually takes months of training to get familiar enough with each other’s magic, though.”
Brandon flushed, and Plum nodded, beaming. “‘Twas marvelous,” she said. “We shall have to experiment with this!”
“You are as talented as ever, Miss Plumeria,” Willam commented, wide-eyed and awestruck. “As are you, cousin,” he added hastily.
Plum beamed, and continued talking about all of the practical implications of this revelation. Brandon wasn’t so sure, but Plum’s excitement was infectious. ‘Tis good to see her smile, he thought, and found himself smiling back.
“Where are we, by the way?” Willam asked.
“A few hours walk from the Golden Hold,” came Theoderic’s answer. “And a few dozen feet underground. This waystation is much better hidden than the one near Algaran. Come on, we should get moving.” He stepped off the dais towards a staircase leading upwards, towards the surface.
The group stood, and Brandon staggered a bit as he stood. Plum caught him and helped him stand, and she reached out with her other hand to brush some of the hair out of his face. He felt his heart skip a beat at her touch, and not from the fatigue.
“Are you ready, love?” she asked, a smile still on her face.
Brandon nodded. “Let us be off.”
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