Chương 141: Chapter 138. Home

"Land ho!" came a cry from above. A heartbeat later, the lookout leaned over the rail of the crow's nest and shouted, "Arkhos! Arkhos off the bow!" The ship cut through the cold waters of the Vermillion Sea, leaving a foamy trail behind it, and Arkhos rose ahead of them in the morning light, its floating districts climbing the hillside in tiers of marble and sun. Adom stood near helm, watching the city grow.

The skyline hadn't changed in his absence, the seven spires of the Academy still presiding over everything else, and after weeks in the frozen passes even the salt wind off the water felt like a kindness.

"So," Captain Lowe said, for what was easily the fifth time since they'd left at dawn, "nothing happened? Nothing at all?" Adom glanced at the young naval officer stirring the helm. Lowe's eyes kept drifting toward the cargo hold, where several bound farmusian soldiers, and one badly battered Northking were currently secured.

"Were you hoping for something?" Adom asked.

"A daring escape, maybe, or a sea monster, to round out the adventure?" Lowe colored a little.

"No. It's just — it's the Northking. Mervyn Ravencroft. The Butcher of Redbrook. And you've got him hog-tied in my hold like a festival pig."

"And?"

"It seems too easy. That's all." Adom raised an eyebrow.

"I promise you, Captain, it was not easy."

"No. Of course. I didn't mean—""I know what you meant." He let his tone ease.

"The binding artifacts are close to foolproof, and even if he slipped them, there's nowhere for him to go. We're in the middle of the sea." That seemed to settle Lowe somewhat. He corrected their heading by a few degrees, hands sure on the wheel despite his age.

"Still. First mission out, and you bring in the Northking himself. They'll be telling this one for decades."

"That was the plan." Adom joked.

"You planned to capture him?" Adom gave him a moment, but there was nothing. That happened sometimes. More often than he liked, actually. Somewhere along the way, his sense of humor had become an old man's thing, and younger people had an unfortunate habit of missing it entirely. A pity. He thought it had been a decent line.

"... No. We planned to intercept a potential incursion. He was extra." Lowe whistled low.

"Some extra. The diplomatic mess alone…" He stopped, then added with open awe, "They'll reward the lot of you for this."

"Well, that's for the Magisterium to decide."

"Come on. Tell me you're not a little bit looking forward to the look on the farmusian emperor's face when he hears his favorite nephew's sitting in an Arkhos cell." The corner of Adom's mouth moved.

"It might be satisfying." Lowe laughed, then caught himself staring, which he'd been doing on and off since they boarded.

"Something on my face, Captain?" Lowe flushed darker.

"No. Sorry. It's only… I'd been told you were, well. Smaller. One of the senior officers had a nickname for you. Shrimp, I think it was." Adom chuckled.

"Ah. Old habits."

"But you're—" Lowe gestured vaguely at the entire length of him.

"Tall?"

"Very. Not what I'd call shrimp-like."

"Late growth spurt. I was the smallest in my year until about three years ago. The name simply outlived the reason for it." Lowe squinted up at him.

"How tall are you, even?"

"A bit under one ninety-six, last I measured."

"And you're, what, twenty?"

"Nineteen." Lowe shook his head.

"Nineteen, a Krozball legend, a literal magus, and pulling down imperial commanders. Makes me wonder what I was doing at your age."

"Falling off boats, by the look of you," Adom said.

"You've the stance of a man who learned his sea legs the hard way." Lowe seemed to think about that for a second, then a second longer. His brow furrowed.

"Wait," he said.

"How did you know I fell off boats at nineteen?"

"... The stance. I was — it was the stance." Said a confused Adom.

"Oh, I see…" He was silent for a moment, then turned to Adom again.

"Because I did. Twice in one season. Cracked my head on the gunwale the second time, spent a week seeing double." Lowe shook his head, marveling.

"That's uncanny, that is." Then, a beat late, he got there.

"Oh — oh. Ha. Hahaha." He nodded, pleased with himself for arriving.

"That's funny. The stance, because — yes. Very funny." Adom decided, on reflection, that perhaps the joke had landed and the captain was simply a literal sort of man, and that whatever had just happened, he himself was not the problem here. Still got it, he told himself, with slightly less conviction than before. Off the port rail, a small figure in a borrowed cloak two sizes too large had been watching the city the whole while with an expression Adom couldn't quite read. He went over.

"You're sure about this?" Adom asked.

"There's a place for you in Arkhos if you want it. Warm. No one to dig holes for." Grik son of Grull shook his head, and there was no hesitation in it.

"I thank you, good master. But the Hollow-Under-Stone is my home, and my people will think me dead. I would rather they did not, for as long as that can be arranged." He paused.

"If you could see me to the northern woods, I will find the rest of the way. A goblin knows his own forest."

"I'll arrange a carriage for you." Adom crouched to his level.

"And if Arkhos ever starts feeling like enough forest, you know where to find me." The goblin inclined his head with as much dignity as a creature his size could manage, which turned out to be a fair amount. A shout came down from the crow's nest.

"Harbor patrol approaching, Captain!" A sleek vessel with blue-and-gold sails was cutting toward them from the harbor mouth, flying the flags of a formal reception. Lowe straightened his uniform.

"The Archmage's personal craft. That's unusual."

"The Magisterium does enjoy a ceremony," Adom said. The ship that came for them was no ordinary thing. Its hull curved like a crescent, the enchanted wood shifting color with the waves, and two great structures swept up from either side that were not sails and not quite wings, pulsing with a faint blue light that pushed the vessel along without any help from the wind.

"There she is," Adom said, and didn't bother hiding the pride.

"The Magebane." The door to the lower deck banged open and Sam came up squinting, adjusting his glasses against the glare. He leaned on the rail and let out a low whistle.

"They sent the fancy toy." Karion ducked through behind him.

"Of course they did. We caught the Butcher of Redbrook. You don't send a rowboat for that." Damus came up last, arms folded, and said nothing, though even he was looking at the Magebane with something that wasn't quite indifference. As it drew alongside, the scale of it became clear, three times the size of their own boat and barely troubling the water. Then the front of it began to move.

What had looked like solid hull split down the center and peeled back in two halves, opening onto a sheltered interior dock large enough to swallow their vessel whole.

"That's new," Adom noted.

"They've been busy."

"Are we meant to sail into it?" Lowe asked, an octave up.

"That appears to be the invitation." Lowe swallowed.

"Into the mouth of the beast, then." He brought them in with care, and the moment they cleared the threshold the jaws closed behind them and sealed out the daylight. Inside, glowing orbs hung at intervals along the walls, and enchanted windows showed the harbor as though there were no hull at all between them and it. Adom ran his fingers along a sequence of runes worked into the wall and found it changed since he'd last been aboard, the containment field rebuilt, the new lattice cleaner than the old one.

Elegant, even. Someone had been improving on his work, and he found he didn't mind. A platform at the far end descended without a sound, carrying a man with salt-and-pepper hair and a neatly trimmed beard, his robes more elaborate than the two attendants flanking him. Magister Everett had known Adom since he was a gangly fourth-year, which kept the formalities from getting too stiff.

"Magus Sylla," Everett said, offering his hand.

"Quite the catch." Adom took it.

"Thank you, Magister. It was the four of us."

"So I gather." Everett's gaze moved across the others with a warm nod.

"Outstanding work. First mission, and already the most significant any new team's brought home in years. The Northking in custody, and a dangerous weapon secured." His expression sobered.

"I'll admit the weapon is the part that's going to keep people up at night, if what you said about it is true." Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

"It should," Adom said. The prisoners were brought up under guard, the Northking last, sealed, silent and very much aware of the attention. Everett watched him pass with the flat look of a man filing a problem for later. Then a hush moved through the dock, and the platform descended a second time, carrying a single figure. Archmage Gaius stepped off it, and even Everett straightened.

"Well," Gaius said, his voice carrying without effort.

"Hello there." Six years had added nothing to the archmage. He had been old when Adom first met him, white-haired and lined, and he was exactly that old now and not a day more, as though time had taken one look at the Archmage and decided to spend its efforts elsewhere. Only the eyes gave anything away. There was a tiredness in them that hadn't been there before, banked low and well hidden, results of the work that had grown heavier than he let on.

The four of them brought their hands up in the mage's salute, fist closed over the heart, standing straight. Gaius waved it off with good humor.

"Yes, yes. Spare me. I've had enough saluting this week to last a decade." But he crossed to each of them in turn, and there was a way he had of giving a man his whole attention for the few seconds it lasted that made those few seconds feel like a great deal. A word for Karion about the discipline it took to hold a perimeter in that cold. A nod to Sam for clean weaving under pressure, which Sam received while trying very hard not to glow.

A simple "well done" to Damus, which from Gaius to Damus amounted to a full speech. By the time he'd come round the four of them were standing a little taller than before, and pretending they weren't.

"Now." He turned to Adom.

"Walk with me. I'd like your report directly." To the others: "The three of you, file the formal account with Everett. Everything you saw, in order, nothing rounded off. I'll want it on record before the day's out." They moved to a cleared stretch of the deck, away from the rest. Gaius leaned against the rail, posture loose, eyes anything but.

"You did good work," he said.

"Capturing Ravencroft will weigh well for your nomination, in case that hadn't occurred to you."

"It hadn't, honestly."

"No, I don't suppose it had." Gaius studied him.

"... I've known you six years now, and I've learned the face you make when something's sitting wrong with you. You're making it. So." Adom checked that no one was near enough to hear, then met his eyes.

"Dragon's Breath, sir. It's not that they've resumed development. They've nearly finished it. The thing in that hold isn't a rumor or a research note. It's a prototype, and it's most of the way to working." Whatever ease had been between them went out like a snuffed candle.

"How close?" Gaius said.

"Closer than anyone's estimate. Months, not years, if they had the materials. The build's sound. Most of the hard problems are solved." Adom kept his voice level.

"And it shouldn't exist yet. Not at this stage, and after everything we did to avoid it these past few years." Gaius said nothing for a while. The skyline of Arkhos sat ahead of them, peaceful and bright and entirely unaware.

"So," he said at last.

"What do you want to do?"

"First, we need to dismantle this prototype, and be more radical about things. We don't contain Dragon's Breath. We stop it all the way." Adom held his gaze.

"Which means Farmus. Directly." Gaius's brows lifted a fraction.

"You want to strike the Empire of Farmus?"

"Yes." The Archmage looked at the water for a long moment, and the light off it caught Adom's eyes and made him squint.

"We'll speak of this later," Gaius said.

"Properly. Not on a borrowed deck within earshot of a harbor." Adom nodded, recognizing the dismissal for what it was.

"Agreed, sir." The docking went more smoothly than anything involving the most wanted man in three kingdoms had any right to. Adom changed into plain clothes, brown trousers and a cream shirt that made him look like any young man back from a trip, and the others did the same. They came together on the dock afterward, the salt air threaded with the smells of the city, spiced bread and roasted nuts and that particular mix of ocean and magic that clung to everything in Arkhos.

"Meat pies," Sam said immediately, settling his jacket.

"I've been thinking about them for a month."

"Frosties after," Karion said.

"It's too hot for anything that isn't cold." And it was hot. Summer in Arkhos was another world entirely from the passes they'd left, the sun hard on the white stone, the breeze warm off the sea. They worked their way through the harbor district, past vendors selling fish and trinkets and charms, and found Old Mary's cart wedged in its usual spot between a bookbinder and a shop selling Tirajin silk. Mary was directing a small army of assistants.

She was older now, her hair gone fully silver and her hands less steady than they'd been, but she still made the pies herself.

"Well," she called, spotting them.

"Look what the tide brought back. My favorite troublemakers, all grown and playing soldier."

"War mages, Mary," Sam said, grinning.

"War mages, soldiers, same scrawny lot that used to beg me for extra filling." She looked them over and clicked her tongue.

"Too thin, all of you. Especially you, Adom. What've they been feeding you up there, bark?"

"Eh, something like it." Her eyes moved over the group and didn't find what they were looking for.

"Where's Cyrel got to? Usually can't keep that girl away when you lot turn up." The other three turned to look at Adom with the same smirk on all three faces. He ignored them.

"She's not in today?"

"Day off. Helping Ben with something at the farm." Mary's tone was carefully neutral and her eyes were anything but.

"You'll find her there, I expect."

"I might stop by later," Adom said, which only widened the smirks.

"Of course you will, dear. The usual, all of you?" They ordered enough pies to feed a garrison, found a frosty stand three streets over, and let the cold ice do its work against the heat. Then they parted. Sam went toward the residential quarter where he and his family now lived. Karion was off to whatever his family kept him for these days. Damus said something brief and went his own way.

Adom stopped at the takeout place his family loved, a little shop run by a cheerful halfling couple who made the best dumplings in the city, and bought enough for dinner. His family had come to Arkhos from Kati three years back, and the place had become a fixture since. The walk home took him through the middle of the city, and he noticed again how much it had changed. Arkhos had been plainly Sundarian once.

Now elven spires twisted up beside dwarven stonework, and Tirajin gardens spilled down the sides of buildings in colors that had no business next to the old white marble. Sundar had spent years building ties outward, and it showed everywhere you looked.

"Adom! Adom, is that you?" Mrs. Henley was hurrying toward him from her flower stand on Merchant's Row, a bouquet of summer blooms already in hand.

"For your mother," she said, pressing them on him before he could argue.

"Welcome home, dear."

"Mrs. Henley, let me at least pay—""Nonsense. You've been off defending the realm. Least I can do." It went on like that. The baker pushed a fresh loaf on him. The cheese vendor all but buried him in a wheel of aged cheddar. Six blocks in, he was carrying enough food and goodwill to open a stall of his own, and ducking down side streets did nothing, because word moved through Arkhos faster than he did, especially where a returning local was concerned. He could have cast something and slipped home unseen.

He chose not to. After weeks of cold and silence, he wanted the noise of it, the warmth, the overwhelming friendliness of people who knew his name. Eventually, loaded down like a festival mule, he turned onto his street. The row of pastel houses stretched ahead, and his family's was the pale blue one, third from the corner, his mother's herb garden spilling over the front fence. He stood a moment and just looked at it.

After everything, the cold and the mission and the weight of knowing what was coming, the small blue house with its yellow door felt like the most important place in the world. The front window was open. He could hear voices inside. He climbed the three steps, the packages floating along behind him, and before he could reach for a key the runes in the doorframe glowed soft blue, pulsed twice, recognized him, and let the door swing open with a quiet click. Cool air met him as he stepped in.

The house looked narrow from the street, just another townhouse in a row, but spatial magic was a wonderful thing, and inside it opened into high ceilings and wide halls and rooms that had no business fitting in the footprint.

"Hello?" he called, setting the packages on the entry table.

"Anyone home?" Silence. He frowned and listened, then shut his eyes and let his druidic senses bring the house into focus. —Ada, I must insist you reconsider. While I admire the spirit of the thing, I fear the consequences will prove most disagreeable for all parties involved. Adom grinned. Zuni. Ada. Please. Listen to reason— A blur shot across the entrance hall, a small dark-haired girl with a blue ball of fur and far too many quills hot on her heels. Ada clocked Adom mid-flight and barely slowed.

"Good morning, brother!" Then she was gone around the corner toward the kitchen. Adom dropped the packages and moved, intercepting his sister before she reached whatever she had planned, scooping her up and spinning her around and planting a volley of loud kisses on her cheek.

"Come here, you."

"UNHAND ME!" Ada shrieked, giggling through every word.

"UNHAND ME THIS INSTANT!" Zuni skidded to a halt beside them, small chest heaving. Adom, he said. Your timing, as ever, is impeccable. I was attempting to talk young Ada out of what she has been calling the greatest prank in the history of the world.

"Was not!" Ada protested from Adom's arms.

"It was going to be the greatest prank in the history of the universe." Ah, said Zuni gravely. My apologies for understating the scope. Adom looked between the two of them.

"Should I be worried?" Possibly, said Zuni.

"Definitely not," said Ada, at exactly the same time.

"UNHAND ME—""What in the world is all this racket?" Maria came out of the kitchen wiping her hands on a towel, her face caught between exasperation and amusement, and the moment she saw him it gave way entirely.

"There's my boy." She crossed to him at once and had to reach up now to kiss his forehead and both cheeks.

"Look at you. You've gone and got too tall. I can hardly reach."

"Hi, Mom." He grinned, Ada still on his hip, her escape forgotten in favor of watching.

"How did it go? The first mission." Maria stepped back and looked him over the way only a mother could, hunting for injuries.

"It went well."

"For a second-circle mage, I should hope so."

"I'm not second circle yet, Mom."

"SHE WAS WORRIED!" Ada announced at volume.

"She looked out the window every single morning and every single evening, and asked when you were coming, and Father had to take us down to the harbor in the afternoons to wait for your boat!" Both of them laughed.

"Ada," Maria warned, still smiling.

"It's true! You made me count the days on the calendar!"

"Where is Father?" Adom asked.

"Arthur went off to clear his head in one of the smaller dungeons. You know how he gets, cooped up too long. He should be back soon, he's not usually out past—" The house trembled. It was slight, only enough to set the dishes rattling in the kitchen. They all went still and looked at one another. Arkhos sat on an archipelago, and small tremors weren't unheard of, so Adom had nearly decided to let it go when it came again. Longer this time.

The floorboards creaked, and somewhere above them a door drifted open on its hinges. That, Zuni said, is most certainly not a tremor. I can feel it in my quills. Adom closed his eyes and reached out. Whatever it was, it was coming from upstairs. From his room, to be exact.

"Ada, go to Mother." He passed his sister into Maria's arms.

"What's wrong?" Maria asked.

"Not sure yet. Stay down here. Please." He started for the stairs, Zuni bounding after him faster than his size suggested. The trembling was building now. Adom, Zuni said as they climbed, I feel obliged to mention that it is becoming considerably warmer. He was right. By the landing the air had gone hot, and there was a smell to it, not quite smoke, but something burning close by.

"Stay out here, Mom," Adom called down as he reached his door. He put his hand to the handle and snatched it back. The metal was hot enough to scald. The trembling didn't stop now, and through the gap beneath the door a blue glow flickered against the floorboards. Fire. There was fire in his room. Adom drew a breath and pushed the door open. The heat rolled over him like a wall. His room was full of warm, moving light, and at the center of all of it— The phoenix egg.