A Practical Guide to Sorcery

Chapter 225: The Starpeak Mountains

Oliver

Month 8, Day 30, Monday 7:00 p.m.

The thunderous pounding of erythrean hooves against the earth shuddered through Oliver’s body as he hunched low over his beast’s neck. Exhaustion etched his face, and those of his companions. Their clothes were wind-whipped and sweat-stained, and dirt had built up into lines of mud on the areas where their skin creased. The relentless pace had taken its toll, but they pressed on desperately.

Magically lightened saddles took much of the weight off the horses, allowing them to maintain their grueling pace. Extra horses were tethered behind, ready to replace any mount that faltered. Oliver’s erythrean was powerful, his eager strides eating up the road below, but he wasn’t Elmira.

A pang of grief that turned to frustrated, exhausted rage shot through Oliver as he thought of Elmira. She had fallen in battle at Knave Knoll against the Architects of Khronos months ago, a senseless waste of an innocent life. For him, the loss of a friend.

Now again, the Architects were the cause of his problems.

His muscles were beyond aching and had started to scream and tremble from the constant tension of maintaining his position in the saddle. The others had taken what recovery potions they could, without building up any toxicities, but of course the potions barely worked on Oliver.

They had been riding for almost two weeks now, trying desperately to catch up with the strike team the Architects of Kronos had sent to Osham. They had long passed the follow-up team of Oliver’s people that he had first sent out, before he realized the severity of the situation.

Kiernan had been away from the University when the team was authorized and sent, and Oliver had learned their purpose too late. Kiernan insisted he hadn’t known about it and did not authorize it. But he wouldn’t say who did, which made Oliver suspect it was someone important. It was possible that one of the Crowns had turned on their the others and was colluding with the Architects, he supposed. He would dig into it when he returned.

The landscape, a mix of stony fields and scattered trees that Oliver barely registered, blurred past them. He had no energy for curiosity. The only thing that kept him going was the knowledge that they would reach the Starpeak Mountains’ western pass, only a short distance from the ocean, in one more day. Already, the jagged peaks were visible, and had been for some time, though they were the foggy blue-grey that came with distance and humidity in the air.

Enforcer Huntley was the first to notice something in the distance, observant as ever. He called a halt, drawing Oliver out of his single-minded focus. They slowed the horses gradually, allowing time for their powerful circulatory systems to cool down somewhat. Too sudden a stop, after hours at top speed, could cause damage.

Two massive shapes soared through the sky to the west, their wingspans dwarfing even the largest eagles.

Oliver squinted, trying to make out more details, but the fading light and the moisture-laden air of the ocean made it difficult to discern much beyond their general silhouettes. “Rocs,” he breathed.

Enforcer Huntley dismounted and moved to stand on the side of the road. He raised a battered spyglass to his eye, adjusting the focus as he peered at the distant figures.

“I can’t make out much,” Huntley said. “It could be some kind of stealth spell at work, or just the damned humidity.” He plucked at his shirt with distaste, fanning himself.

Oliver nodded, a knot of unease forming in his stomach, and held out a hand for the spyglass. He couldn’t make out much more than Huntley.

“I don’t want to jinx us, but I have a bad feeling about this,” Huntley said.

“You think it’s the Architect strike team?”

Huntley took the spyglass back again and fiddled with it. “It would make sense, wouldn’t it? Bypass the Starpeak Mountains entirely. No need to deal with Osham’s border guard or defenses if they get enough distance and come around from the north… And it’s much harder to notice and defend against a flying attack.”

Oliver agreed, but he didn’t say so out loud. He dismounted his horse and almost collapsed. After hanging onto the saddle for a bit while he shook out his legs, he was able to hobble back and forth a bit to loosen the muscles. “It was already tight, trying to make up for a week’s head-start.”

Huntley gave his horse a scratch on the neck that it was too exhausted to respond to as he waited for Oliver to make a decision. One hundred twenty kilometers a day was an almost unbelievable speed. Oliver couldn’t expect any more from the horses. Or the team.

“If they’ve got rocs, even laden with men and supplies, stopping to hunt, they could easily cover five hundred kilometers in a day,” Oliver said. He took out a map, ignoring the cold rush of exhaustion that shivered down his back despite the heat, and did the math. “If so, we can’t catch up to them. Not like this,” he muttered. He closed his eyes and spoke louder. “Even going out of their way far enough that they can avoid sight from land and come in on the target from the other direction, they’ll be there in five, maybe six more days.”

“Maybe that’s not them,” one of the other enforcers offered with tentative optimism.

Huntley raised both eyebrows and shrugged. “Sure,” he said, but he didn’t sound particularly optimistic.

The weight of their situation settled over them like a heavy cloak. Oliver, at least, had some idea of what failure here could mean, and the others weren’t idiots. They needed to catch the Architects before they got to Osham and stop them from ever crossing the border.

Oliver couldn’t go to the Osham government himself. He had a few contacts in Osham, either leftover from his childhood, or acquired more recently. After his father had smuggled Oliver out of the country, the man had been disgraced. The state had charged half the family fortune in fines, and imprisoned him for six years, putting his skills as a thaumaturge to work. When he returned to freedom, his titled was lowered by two ranks, and much of his businesses and lands given to his former rivals.

Oliver was still technically considered a fugitive, though Osham hadn’t put much effort into recovering him. But if he was discovered in Osham, some opportunistic head of state might try to use his presence as leverage, or turn him in to gain favor with the ruling party. He might never leave Osham again if he set foot across that border.

Oliver watered his horse, drank deeply from his own automatically refilling canteen, then braced himself before swinging back into the saddle. He ignored the pained cry of his muscles. He had grown soft, living in Gilbratha, and with so much luxury, for so long. “If it’s not them, we have to keep going. Even if it is them, we need to keep going.”

The Architects’ plan was audacious, to put it kindly. In harsher words, it was reckless insanity. They were on their way to kidnap a group of recruits from a small military training facility near Osham’s northern border.

Why? Oliver had asked himself that question many times. Kiernan either didn’t know or wouldn’t say.

The first motive that came to mind was ransom. Osham’s government had a strict policy against negotiating with hostage-takers, a principle they adhered to with unwavering resolve. However, people might be ransomed back to their families instead, or used to blackmail powerful parents into doing the Architects some unsavory favor.

But Oliver suspected it was more than that. The Architects had proven themselves reckless, but even they must have realized that they were taking a large risk. Not only would the military facility be protected, its inhabitants ready to fight back, Osham’s response to crime or anything they felt was a threat was overwhelming aggression. If they failed, everyone on the strike team would die, some of them would have their minds torn apart, and Osham would very likely decide to solve the problem of the Architects more permanently.

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

No, risk like this required a commensurate reward.

Oliver could think of one thing that might make it worth it. What if the recruits were Nulls?

Siobhan had told Oliver of her suspicions that one of the Architects’ hired mercenaries, a rogue agent from the Red Guard, was using Aberrant parts as components, something Oliver had not even known was possible. But with that knowledge, and Tanya Canelo’s story of her near-fatal mission for the Architects, Oliver had grown suspicious that they were smuggling Aberrant parts. When he had tracked down an Aberrant-components smuggler for Siobhan, he hadn’t been able to connect them directly to the Architects, but it only reinforced his suspicions.

Nulls were at a disadvantage in many ways, being entirely unable to do magic, but they had a few specific advantages. Because of the way that magic struggled to affect them, they were useful in combating Aberrants and countering magic that lacked physical components.

Unlike Lenore, which embraced magic in all its forms, Osham’s deep-seated stigma against thaumaturges—and particularly free, unleashed thaumaturges—made Nulls even more prized. They even bred for it, with noble lines bringing Nulls in by marriage in the hopes of producing children with the trait. Children that would then serve the state and bring honor to their families.

It was why his sister had been taken. She and Oliver weren’t completely oblivious to the dangers. Their family had never been quite as nationalistic and fervently loyal as Osham’s other leaders probably wanted. Oliver and his sister had even made a childish plan to escape and live on their own before she was drafted.

But they hadn’t managed it, and four years after his last glimpse of her—looking back at him from atop the horse his family was also donating to the military, trying to smile at him bravely though her eyes glittered with unshed tears—his family had received a letter informing them of her death. They had sent back her belongings, but not her body. Not even ashes.

That was when his father began making plans to send Oliver away. When it was confirmed that Oliver had no chance of becoming a thaumaturge himself, his father acted. Oliver hadn’t seen the man in twenty years. He was still alive, but they didn’t share correspondence very frequently, except to check on the other’s wellbeing.

But even if the Osham recruits were Nulls, something still didn’t add up. Didn’t the Architects know about the mental conditioning programs that Osham subjected its recruits to? They were rather effective at instilling unwavering loyalty to the state. Surely, the Architects must have known that kidnapping fully indoctrinated soldiers and hoping to change their allegiance would be a long, arduous process.

But perhaps that was exactly the point, and why the strike team was moving with such urgency. Perhaps they hoped to capture recruits who hadn’t yet been subjected to the full brunt of Osham’s psychological manipulation. By acting now, they might hope to capture these young men and women before Osham’s conditioning irrevocably shaped their minds.

The implications sent a chill down Oliver’s spine. What might the Architects do with a cadre of Nulls? And what would Osham do in response, if they felt threatened?

The Architects wanted revolution. One might think that made them and Oliver allies. But they disagreed on the outcome of that revolution, and perhaps the methods of execution, too. He could only think of a few things one might do with a group of Nulls. Of course, the Architects might outfit them with artifacts and use them as a fighting force, but the problem with the most common battle spells was that they caused harm by affecting the environment.

Oliver was resistant to magical effects, both good and bad. But he was just as likely to get roasted by a fireball or have his organs ruptured by a concussive blast as anyone else.

Perhaps the Architects had heard word of a specific Aberrant. If Siobhan was correct, the components from the exact right Aberrant might significantly increase the chances of a successful coup.

Or—and he wasn’t sure if this was better or worse—what if the Architects hoped to create a specific Aberrant, kill it, and butcher it like a cow?

He could understand why, with such a goal, this might seem like the perfect opportunity. Of course, it was all still speculation, but it made a little too much sense.

The next day, Oliver and his team stopped a few kilometers from the base of the Starpeak Mountains. From afar, the mountains had been visible as a jagged wall stretching up to meet the clouds, but as they drew closer, the true scale of these geological behemoths became something they could feel. The mountains loomed defiant, a row of massive stone fangs that seemed to tear at the very fabric of the heavens.

The peaks, ranging from twelve to eighteen kilometers in height, vanished into the clouds far above. Even the lower troughs and valleys between the mountains, at around five kilometers high, dwarfed any other terrain Oliver had encountered. Despite their seemingly fragile appearance, with sharp, craggy edges and precarious overhangs, the Starpeak Mountains had withstood the test of time and nature’s fury.

Only small villages resided among them, groups that had carved out a place for themselves and learned how to survive the harsh environment. Those, and Osham’s military bases, where they stationed both massive artillery artifacts and teams of riders flying rocs, gryphons, perytons, and even the occasional pegasus or dragon.

The Starpeak Mountains were logistically, if not literally, impassible. During the Third Empire, several guerrilla groups had bases within them. Osham had caused more trouble to the Blood Emperor’s goals of conquest than several of the smaller countries combined.

The western pass, near the coast, offered a route through. Far to the east, the Starpeak Mountains ended abruptly near the border with Silva Erde, allowing a second path for trade. Combined with the ice oceans to the northwest and the Abyss Chasm to the north—and the magical beasts that crawled out of it—natural barriers left Osham somewhat isolated from the rest of the known lands.

The small military outpost the Architects sought sat close to the Abyss Chasm. The constant battles against magical beasts emerging from the chasm’s profound depths provided invaluable training for Osham’s soldiers, while the harvested components and beast cores from these creatures formed a significant portion of the nation’s export income.

Oliver and his people split up to enter the city that had formed to deal with the trade near the pass, leaving a couple of their number to watch the road. They did their best to discreetly gather information about any unusual activities or sightings. Hours passed as they combed through taverns, markets, and docks, seeking any whisper of the Architects’ strike team.

Enforcer Huntley went to speak with the border station.

Reconvening at an inn near the city’s edge, they shared their findings, or rather, the lack thereof.

“Nothing,” Huntley reported snappishly, his voice filled with frustration. “No sign of any large group passing through, no unusual boat hires, not even a whiff of suspicious activity.”

Another enforcer chimed in, “I checked with the harbormaster. No unscheduled vessels have docked in the past week.”

“They could have joined up with a large convoy, perhaps.” Oliver said. “Anonymity in numbers.”

“Or they could have smuggled themselves in as cargo.”

Oliver frowned. It was more common for people to try to smuggle themselves out of Osham than in, but that might just mean that the guards were laxer about searching.

“We could try to run them down—without you,” Huntley said, giving Oliver a warning stare as if he anticipated Oliver would try to throw himself into danger. “But I don’t like our chances of stopping them without creating…trouble.” A political incident, Huntley meant. “And if I’m honest, I think we’re already too late.”

“The rocs,” one of the other enforcers said, eliciting weary nods all around.

Another piped up, “We could hire rocs, too. Or maybe a dragon, if there are any riders in the city.”

“We’re already a day behind,” a woman muttered. “And what would we tell the dragon rider, exactly?”

“If our quarry has already passed the border, then it’s too late to stop this quietly,” Oliver said. The team exchanged uneasy glances.

After a moment of tense silence, Oliver spoke again, his voice low and determined. “We have no choice. We must inform the border officials of the impending attack.”

“But sir,” one of the younger enforcers interjected, “won’t that compromise our alliance? The Architects are going to know who spilled.”

Oliver shook his head. “Better this, than the attack succeeding and Osham blaming Lenore.” If they thought that they’d been attacked by Lenore, when tensions were already so high due to the depleting supplies of celerium, what would they do? The state was afraid to be seen as weak. Osham’s leaders blustered and used force, even when a soft hand might be better. In Oliver’s opinion, they did not seem to understand the consequences of creating resentment, even with the wonderful example the Blood Emperor had set.

“They can use a divination relay to get the message where it needs to go quickly—quicker than a roc—and hopefully mount a response in time,” he said.

With grim determination, they set about crafting a carefully worded message. Oliver ensured it contained enough information to prompt action without revealing their own involvement or the full extent of their knowledge.

Then, they spent a few hours hunting down a horn of speech owned by the local City Manager which was sympathetically connected to the border patrol’s head office. No one wanted to volunteer to deliver the bad news in person, after all. That was likely to get them detained and questioned. And when the Architects caused trouble, that questioning might turn distinctly torturous.

As the two-way horn relay carried their warning to Osham’s military command, Oliver felt a mix of relief and apprehension. They had done what they could, but it felt woefully inadequate.

Belatedly, the thought crossed his mind that the recruits might actually be better off getting kidnapped by the Architects of Khronos. But Oliver couldn’t fix all the wrongs in the world. Not yet, anyway.

The border authorities’ response was colored by skepticism, confusion, and aggression. The idea of a terrorist group targeting such a remote outpost seemed far-fetched to many officials.

“At least they’re aware now,” Huntley offered, trying to find a silver lining. “They might not believe it fully, but they’ll be watching.”

Oliver nodded, but the knot in his stomach only tightened. “We’ll stay for a few days,” he decided. “Just in case we somehow overtook the strike team without realizing it, and can catch them on their way through.”

Half the team brightened considerably at the promise of beds, baths, and cooked food.

But Oliver couldn’t shake the feeling of impending disaster. The dread that had been building since he first learned of this plan now sat like a lead weight in his belly.