Warlords Rising (12 page)

The next morning they were out again, finishing up the job
they had started. Becca’s storm had done its job and filled the reservoir
half-full and given the ground a good soaking. Well, as much as this soil could
handle, at least.

Trev’nor surveyed the results inside their walled-in garden
space with a satisfied expression. “Perfect. I needed moisture to really get
the soil to optimum conditions.”

Watching an Earth Mage work was nothing like watching a Life
Mage, or an Air Mage, or any other type. They didn’t have to concentrate in
quite the same way. Trev’nor’s eyes seemed to go blind to his immediate
surroundings as he saw something below the level of the ground that the rest of
them could not detect.

But even she could see the results. A great deal of powdery
substance and hard pebbles were shifted to the side in a rubbish pile. The
earth around them became dark and rich, perfect for planting. She glanced at
Nolan and found him rubbing his hands, eager to get started. “Perfect?”

“Perfect,” he agreed.

Trev’nor stepped back and gave Nolan a grand flourish and
bow. “My apologies for the delay, My Lord Magus. Do proceed.”

Nolan punched him in the arm, playfully, and stepped past
him with a grin on his face.

“Did you see that?” Trev’nor mock-complained to her.  “I do
the man favors and get abused for it.”

“You poor baby,” she cooed. “Should I kiss it and make it
better?”

“Ew. Becca, seriously, ew.”

Snickering, she turned to find that Bala was in her shadow.
Of course she was, someone had to be. She looked between the two of them with a
blush on her cheeks and Becca could just see the girl jumping to the wrong
conclusions. “Bala. Quit that. I was teasing him, that’s why he’s grossed out
right now.”

She looked confused for a split second. Then she lit right
back up. “Ah, then it’s Raja Nolan that you favor?”

Becca buried her head in both hands and groaned, loud and
long. “No. No, I do not. Trev, stop laughing and help me out here.”

“I’ve been trying for three days now to convince people that
I’m not interested in dating you.” Trev’nor sounded quite cheerful about the
whole thing. “They refuse to be convinced. I’m alright with them
misunderstanding you and Nolan, that’s much funnier.”

For that, Becca slugged him in the arm.

Bala gasped. Something about her horrified, befuddled
confusion got Becca’s undivided attention.

“What?” Becca demanded of her.

“Raya Becca, you mustn’t touch a man casually if you are not
attached to him,” Bala scolded in a shocked whisper, as if afraid one of the
elders would overhear. Although who was a good question—they were the only ones
in this section of town at the moment.

It was close, but Becca didn’t start screaming in
frustration.

“Breathe, Bec,” Trev’nor advised, amused and sympathetic all
at once. “Breathe. Miss Bala, our culture is radically different than yours,
you probably won’t get it if I explain. So do us a favor. Treat us like
siblings.”

The girl blinked at him as if she had never heard the word.
“Siblings?”

“Right. Like brother and sister. Because that’s basically
what we are, siblings. We grew up together like them.”

She did not seem able to wrap her mind around this idea
either but seemed more game to try. “I see. I will try.”

“Good, good.” To Becca, Trev’nor said, “While he’s playing,
let’s go eat something. I think we skipped breakfast.”

“It’s too early for lunch,” she pointed out.

“Then we’ll go for luncfest.”

“Trev. There has to be a better way to combine those words.”

He gave her a sweet smile. “We can debate the matter over
food.”

Becca gave up. “Fine. Food.”

Nolan joined them an hour later looking more than a little
dirty but with satisfaction all over his face. He dropped into the chair next
to them, eyeing the remains of the dishes on their table the way a stray dog
would leftovers. “You left some for me?”

“We did, but shouldn’t you clean up first?” Becca eyed him
from head to toe, wondering aloud, “How did you even get this dirty?”

“I had to form a few plants by hand and then bury them more
firmly into the soil,” he explained. “Trev, hit me.”

Trev’nor waved a hand expansively in his direction, like a
stage magician would. “Dirt, I banish thee.”

The dirt leapt to obey and fell off Nolan in one fell swoop.
It left the Life Mage looking clean but not exactly pristine.

Nolan grabbed a clean plate from the middle of the table and
started filling his plate. “So I planted seven different fruit trees, more
vegetables, a few grape vines, and the like. I tweaked them a little so they’re
hardier and they’ll produce longer. They’ll also go dormant on their own
without needing much care, but we need to run the proper way to take care of
the garden by a few people. We don’t want them killing things by accident.”

Becca wholeheartedly agreed with that. “We also need to
teach them what to do with all of these plants. They won’t know how to eat
them, or cook them, or store them, or anything.”

Nolan nodded with his mouth full.

“How fast are these plants of yours growing?” Trev’nor asked
with a slight frown. “Will we be able to show them all of this today?”

Nolan shook his head and reached for his cup, chugging it
down. Once his mouth was clear, he said, “No, the plants will reach full
maturation tonight. We’ll need to stay one more day.”

This surprised Becca. “Even the fruit trees?”

“They won’t be very big, but they’ll produce at least some
fruit by morning. It’ll take years for them to reach full maturation.”

Well, that was a surprise. Becca had no experience with
young fruit trees so she hadn’t realized even the small ones could bear
something. “I’m guessing you used a lot of magic putting the garden in, that’s
why you’re starving?”

“In a nutshell,” Nolan verified before pointing at a dish
near her elbow. “That looks spicy.”

Nolan couldn’t handle any level of spice at all. He had no
tolerance for it. Becca felt a spark of mischievousness take hold.

“It is—” Trev’nor started, only to clam up when she kicked
him in the shin under the table.

“—n’t,” she completed smoothly. “It just looks that way
because of some spice they used. But it’s safe for your tongue.”

Not suspecting a thing, Nolan popped a bite into his mouth.
He probably intended to say something, but his reaction to the hot dish was
almost immediate. His eyes bugged out of his head, his face flushed, sweat
started dewing on his temples. Choking, spluttering, he downed another glass of
water but of course that didn’t help much. Swearing unintelligibly around the
mouthful he couldn’t (politely) spit out, he lunged to his feet.

Becca instinctively jumped up to follow him, which attracted
the attention of everyone else on the street. They slowed as they watched their
foreign mages react in a crazy fashion. Nolan stripped off his jacket, kicked
off shoes one foot at a time, and headed for the nearest open aqueduct. Without
a word to anyone, he climbed up, turning into a seal as he did so. Flopping
inside, he ducked under the water and stayed there for a solid minute.

Of course Trev’nor had followed along, and seeing what his
friend did, doubled over in laughter. “Bec, you’re mean!” he gasped out.

“You say that, but you’re laughing,” she responded,
chuckling herself. “Why is he so bad at spice?”

“I have no idea. My question is, why does he constantly
believe you when you tell him something isn’t spicy? This is like the hundredth
time he’s fallen for it.”

Yes, it was close to that. Becca enjoyed pranking every time
too.

Nolan finally surfaced. Bracing his front fins on the side
of the aqueduct he leveled a seally glare at her and squawked indignantly,
making honking noises.

“I’m sorry, I don’t speak seal,” Becca responded with false
contriteness.

The townspeople around them gathered in closer, awed and a
little amused at this scene. Rikkana Sumi approached and studied Nolan with
something akin to trepidation. “This is…?”

“Nolan,” Becca answered forthrightly. “Life Mages can assume
the form of any animal they wish to.”

The Rikkana regarded the transformed teenager for another
long moment. “Why…?”

“He ate something spicy,” Becca explained, still acting
innocent. “He’s very bad at spice.”

Nolan gave another indignant protest that no one could
understand.

“By that, she means she tricked him into eating something
spicy,” Trev’nor explained, still chuckling and wiping a tear from the corner
of his eye. “Ah, this never gets old. He goes into a different animal form
every time.”

Yes, he did. That’s why she did it. Adopting a business-like
expression, she snapped her fingers at him. “Alright, enough, climb out now and
put your clothes back on. We need to finish eating lunch and return to work.”

Nolan gave her another glare, and a huff, and dove back into
the water.

“I don’t think he trusts you anymore,” Trev’nor drawled.

Wise man. There was still another dish on that table she’d
planned on making him eat. Well, another time would do. Feeling happy and light
for the first time in many days, she skipped back to her lunch. Maybe Nolan
wouldn’t come out of the water anytime soon, but she still planned on teaching
the people in this city some of the joys of life before leaving. Fruits were
high on that list.

Nolan stifled a yawn behind one hand. “Trev. Why are we up
before birds are even awake?”

“Half-asleep people aren’t as prone to panicking,” Trev’nor
explained cheerfully as he took them down into the earth. His magic wrapped
around them in muted tones of green and brown.

They had spent two days longer in Rurick than anyone had planned,
mostly because it had taken that long to teach people how to tend the garden
and what to do with the food it yielded. She did not regret the extra time
because it let her learn more about them. Becca liked to think she had formed
friendships among the people and not just the magicians that she had shared
such a horrific experience with.

Because of that, it was only this morning that they were
finally leaving. Becca had extremely limited experience when it came to using
the Earth Path. In fact, she had only been on it perhaps thrice before in her
life. She wouldn’t begin to say that she was an expert, but to her Trev’nor’s
path felt a little different than Garth’s. How, she couldn’t say, as it wasn’t
something that she could put a finger on. It just did. Although, being down
here did bring up a thought she hadn’t considered before. “Trev. How do you
navigate down here?”

“Same way Garth does. By the feel of the land. I know by the
map where cities are, and I can feel things like mountains and lakes and such.
I use them as landmarks and navigate.” Pausing, he thought for a moment more
before offering, “Also, the buildings that we’re going to are really old,
right? I doubt anything else standing has quite the same feel to them so I’m
searching for something that feels ancient.”

That made a great deal of sense. Most of magic was common
sense application, really, although an outsider didn’t always see it that way. “You
can tell how old a building is?”

“The age of it is very obvious,” Trev’nor admitted absently,
focusing.

Nolan sidled up to her and whispered, “Try not to distract
him. It’s hard for him to navigate in a place he doesn’t know and I’d rather he
not trip over a ley line.”

Oops. Becca clamped her mouth shut and didn’t dare to utter
another peep for the rest of the trip.

She had no way of sensing time, but it seemed like not even
an hour had passed before they rose to the surface, the ground melting away
from them like reverse quicksand. The morning sunlight was just turning to true
day, still in that hazy wash of sepia tones and cool blue. Laid out before them
was a small ridge of hills, like a miniature mountain range, and nestled into
the basin sat a spread of what must have once been a magnificent city. The
buildings sat half-destroyed, there were no roofs to be found, but the pillars
of carved stone still stood straight and tall, forming archways and partial
walls. Some of the buildings stood several stories, others were so demolished
that barely anything of the original structure stood, just one brick on top of
another. Even in its ruined state, it looked breathtaking.

Becca’s voice came out hushed as she asked, “How old is it?”

“At a guess? About thirty or so years after the Magic War
ended.” Trev’nor pointed to the far right. “This part is newer by about a
decade. The central part here is the oldest.”

Nolan tilted sideways to look around Becca, eyes fastened on
Trev’nor. “What? You have the strangest look on your face.”

“Two things,” Trev’nor said hoarsely unable to look away
from the ruins. “One, most of what we’re seeing was fashioned by magic.”

Her breath caught in her throat as Becca took in his
meaning. This was a magically constructed city?! Was it something like the
ancient form of Coven Ordan?

Oblivious to their reaction, Trev’nor continued, “Two,
there’s a memory stone here.”

She had to catch her jaw and slot it back into place to
demand, “Memory stone? Are you sure?”

“Positive. It’s calling out to me very strongly.” Trev’nor
started forward as if sleepwalking, moving as quickly as he could without
taking any more than the basic necessary precautions.

Becca and Nolan had to scramble to keep up with him, he
moved that fast. Becca caught flashes here and there as Trev’nor used magic
subconsciously to speed him past any obstacles that would take more than two
seconds to get through. She had no time to examine any part of the city, as he
moved too fast for her to have that luxury. Instead she focused on keeping up
with him, and it wasn’t until they were near the middle of the ruins—at least
it felt like they were—that Trev’nor abruptly stopped, pivoted on his heel, and
went directly to the right. He reached out with both hands, touching something
just out of her sight, and immediately froze with a look of wonder on his face.

Stepping around, she got a look over his shoulder and found
the strangest looking stone in front of him. It was huge, large enough to put
an ancient tree to shame, and it had lines of magic flickering over it in an
abstract pattern that made no sense to her. The way it writhed and shifted
colors, it looked alive. “That’s a memory stone?”

Nolan nodded, cheeks flushed from the exertion of keeping
up. “Did you ever see the one in Coven Ordan? Or the one we have on Strae?”

“I always meant to, but didn’t. Garth said that it’s almost
alive but…” she trailed off, still studying it. “Is it?”

“Not in the sense you mean,” Nolan disagreed. “It’s alive
with memory, with history, with the recordings of the magician who last touched
it. But it doesn’t have any will of its own. Memory stones are by nature
crafted largely by Earth Mages and then used by everyone else. I think that’s
partially why they call so strongly to any Earth Mage nearby.”

That did make sense. She tilted her torso and looked up at
Trev’nor. He stared straight ahead, expression changing from one second to the
next as he responded to something that she couldn’t hear or see. Waving a hand
in front of his face, he didn’t blink, nor seemed to realize she was nearby at
all. “Is he in a trance?”

“Of sorts,” Nolan confirmed. He came around to study
Trev’nor’s face as well. “Last time this happened, he was more or less held
prisoner by the stone until it had told him everything. I think it’s going to
happen again this time so we might as well be patient and wait him out.”