Chương 37: Chapter 36: On the Horizon

++Garamon was a vast, sprawling Empire, and such things require more upkeep than their home nations alone can produce. I found this to be distasteful, even in the early days of my rebirth. A real master, a true leader, does not need to resort to looting to sustain themselves. ++ - From the writings of Isabel Vornholt, 'The Great Lich'. 1, 891 A. E Agrian was just getting used to helping Isabel on clean-up, and was reluctant to let himself be taken away once father came to remind him of their appointment.

"The attack was just hours ago," he argued.

"Isabel and Victoria, Qaigor—mother, they're all alone without us."

"No they aren't," the Baron sighed as he patted Agrian on the shoulder. The pat in question nearly sent him off his feet, feeling like he'd been hit by a padded sledgehammer.

"We have my guards, remember. Did Isabel tell you about Blakely's trick in the entry hall?"

"No."

"He'd mined the damned ceiling!" he laughed.

"As soon as the enemy burst in through the doors, he set off an explosive charge and dumped about a carriage-load of marble on them from fifty feet above. I daresay even I might've died from that." Agrian didn't like that thought. His father had always felt invincible, and he'd not seen any evidence to contradict that yet. Once he remembered witnessing a sword swung directly against Baron Vornholt's neck, and it didn't even break the skin.

Only during the last kidnapping, the almost-successful one, had he been incapacitated, though even then he'd healed inhumanly well. Father, die? Well yes, of course it was possible. Agrian had spent the last two years studying exclusively with people who could make that happen almost at a whim, and he did not at all care for how much smaller that seemed to have made his world.

They made their way from the mansion by foot, rather than by carriage, and Agrian got the impression his father was testing him quite early into their walk. Obviously the Baron was not moving at his own full speed, not even his own full walking speed—Agrian would have been left in the dust. But he certainly knew how fast the average non-warrior could manage to move, and seemed to be deliberately coaxing Agrian to exceed it.

Why that was, Agrian could not have even begun to guess, but he wasn't about to show his father that he had poor stamina. It was a cold night, and he'd not remembered to bring a jacket, but Agrian was sweating before long. His father looked pleased at least.

"This is going to be good," he said, apparently more to himself.

"I say my one big regret is that you've spent too much bloody time around women and magicians. Time you learn how to be a man, eh?" Another pat on Agrian's shoulder, this one less of a sledgehammer and more of a cricket bat. Half-jogging as he was, Agrian went stumbling all the same.

"Isabel is…more than you give her credit for, I think, father." The Baron sighed.

"You'll learn as you grow older, son, that you simply can't expect the same from women that you do from men. It isn't their fault, they're just…not as strong as us."

"Mother seemed quite strong today, Isabel told me she didn't even hesitate to start leading her through the mansion once the attack started. Even threw herself in-between the magicians and her." His father seemed to be getting irritated now.

"Some are stronger than others, yes, and they have their moments, but I'm just talking about consistency and… breakability, I suppose. Believe me, if you pushed your mother as much as you did me, she would eventually let you down. And that goes double for Isabel. She's younger than you, Agrian. You need to take care of her." Agrian felt his belly squirm at that. He wanted to argue more, of course, wanted to speak up for his sister and his mother, but his father had one of those tones in his voice.

The ones that always killed an argument before it could begin. Besides, he wanted very much to see this gentleman's club, too. And even more, he wanted to not end his first night back with his father by bickering.

"Alright," Agrian nodded, as noncommittally as he thought he could get away with. His father didn't seem to even bother checking how much his words had sunk in, just turned ahead and grinned.

"Ah, we're there!" The building ahead was big but squat, and warm light shone out from each of its windows. The chill night left all the glass translucent with condensation, but Agrian didn't need to see inside to know there were quite a few people occupying it. Even with the door shut, he could overhear them talking.

"Relax," his father said, apparently picking up on his nerves.

"Just be yourself. And keep a stiff upper lip, eh? Don't want to embarrass both of us by snivelling or looking like you're worried."

"Right, yes, of course father." Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more. Another pat, fortunately the weakest yet. Agrian stood his ground this time. The Baron paused a moment, then his gaze intensified.

"And don't mention how you stayed with Victoria and Qaigor today, during the attack. It… won't go down well." Agrian felt his face burn, but kept silent as he nodded. Fortunately his father made nothing more of it and headed for the building. Agrian followed. The first thing he noticed, stepping in through its door, was the warmth. The heat, even, how despite the cold outside he felt like he was baking within. The second thing, the stronger thing, was the scent of smoke.

It took effort not to cough, Agrian wasn't used to smoking after all, but he just about managed to hold it in. His father didn't seem to mind at all of course—apparently a warrior's throat was as tolerant to this as the rest of his body was to everything else.

"Well, what do you think?" he asked eagerly. Agrian looked around and tried to decide. Fortunately, the place wasn't anything like as depraved as he'd been expecting. There were no naked women—no women at all actually—and far more lighting. The place wasn't gloomy either, rather it seemed warm and almost… homely, yes. It felt like the lounge of his own mansion. And it was occupied, Agrian could see just as many men as he'd expected to outside.

Most were older, but there was no shortage of young men—even if none were quite his own age.

"This is the Drummer's Club," his father explained as they entered.

"I don't drum," Agrian mumbled. The Baron laughed.

"It's a joke name my boy. Drummers, from the army. Keeping order and ensuring everything works, letting the men know what's what and giving them a reminder why they fight—going unappreciated, but proving vital all the same. Each man here is of either military service or military blood, almost always both. Officers each and every one of them. I found my way here after returning from my first tour in Estia, had to be…Gods, twenty years ago, almost? Before you came along, that's for sure."

"I'm not a military man either," Agrian pointed out, feeling less certain about his presence here by the moment.

"Indeed," a voice came from the side of him. His head snapped nervously around to behold a rotund man maybe ten years his father's senior, reclining on a sofa.

"Not yet, at least, eh Agrian?" He was referring to the elder, not the younger, and Agrian's father grinned at the question.

"Rodrick!" he stepped forwards and held out a hand, while the enormously fat man remained seated, but shook it eagerly.

"When did you get back?"

"Just last week," the man chuckled, gesturing to the seat beside him for Agrian's father to come over. The Baron did so quickly, ushering his son after him.

"This is Agrian the Younger, of course, uh, Agrian, this is Earl Rodrick Eqrian, a superior of mine from the army." There didn't seem to be much at all that was superior about the man, to Agrian's eye. He had to be almost double his father's weight, though all of it was fat, and twenty years his senior, with a face littered by broken veins and small eyes drifting around almost aimlessly. But politeness was not something people earned, they got it simply for being gentlemen.

"It's good to meet you sir," Agrian extended a hand and the old man engulfed it in his sweaty grip.

"Good to be met!" he laughed cheerfully.

"You're the spitting image of your father, you know. Oh, both of you sit down, would you? My neck is craning just to look up at you both." They sat quickly, and with a word from Agrian's father drinks were soon placed down on the table ahead of them. Agrian didn't touch his just yet, he'd heard horror stories about young men who became far too intoxicated far too quickly in events like these. He'd keep his head as clear as he could manage.

"Now, what sort of work brings you to Lachfel?" Agrian's father asked. The general spluttered into his drink for a moment, seeming to accidentally inhale some of it.

"Bloody hell, I forgot how direct you were! No messing around then?" He laughed.

"Very well old boy, very well, I'm here to survey its leyline." Agrian saw his father stiffen, and felt a sudden tension to this conversation.

"What do you mean by survey?" he asked coolly.

"Oh nothing like that," the general assured him.

"It's not being nationalised on you, I swear. No, I'm doing a circuit of all Garamon's leylines to see their average activity and production." Agrian saw his father ease up.

"Why?" The general hesitated.

"You know I'm really not supposed to say…"

"Oh bollocks to that, we go back how many years, now? We're in the Drummer's Club right now, you know you're good to share. What's going on?" The old man seemed to think about it for a few moments more, then sighed.

"Alright, alright, damn you. I forgot how damned intense you could get about these sorts of things. Fine; the magic's dwindling, Agrian." Agrian saw his father's face as he heard that, and it was one of the most terrible sights he'd ever seen.

"What do you mean dwindling?" he snapped.

"I mean damned dwindling. Becoming weaker, producing slower. We're getting fewer mana crystals growing in mines, fewer magical beasts attracted or born in the surrounding area. Have you noticed that in your own leyline, too?" Agrian's father swallowed before slowly, subtly nodding.

"Yes." his voice was a croak, a whisper. Despite his insistence on the safety of speaking here, it seemed even he didn't want this to get out to the club's other members.

"It's happening all over Garamon," the old general explained.

"Been happening for a good ten years now, some leylines slower than others. The youngest ones, the last to start being mined and farmed I mean, aren't affected yet, but it's believed they will be soon. Our country is starting to run out of natural mana. And you know what that means, I assume?" Agrian's father leaned back.

"I see."

"You understand then?" Rodrick pressed.

"Why Laugfrey is sending an old warhorse like me to do the checking?"

"I understand," the Baron nodded, though Agrian certainly still didn't.

"I don't think I do," he piped up. Both men turned to look at him sharply, like he was somehow intruding on the conversation begun while he was seated right there.

"Then let me make it simple for you my boy," the Baron grinned.

"Garamon will not do without magic. No more cloudscrapers, no more arcane heating units, no more healing salves and magical weaponry? Ha! No, we shan't be accepting that. And if we can't find the material to produce such goods at home, we will simply find it elsewhere. This means war." He turned to the general.

"Any idea as to where yet?"

"You didn't hear this from me," the old man noted, "but we've started applying pressure to some of the Iruchi kingdoms. The ones that haven't fallen under the Empire just yet. I read a wonderful survey a while ago about this one city…well, anyway, they have magic out the arse in that damned continent."

"War with Iruchi…" Agrian's father turned to him with a grin.

"And a few years off, I'd wager. Just in time for the Vornholt family's first battlemage to finish training."