Chương 20: Can't Start Without Cookies

The king was munching on a cookie as a very flustered chief stewardess hovered nearby. She had offered cookies on auto-pilot when the large group came into the dining room, not actually expecting the king himself to take up the offer.

"Remind me to get the recipe for these, Charles," said the king. A slightly harried looking older man nodded to the king and then continued scribbling in his notes. He had been the only part of the king's entourage not present inside the chief mage's office, but joined them as they made their way down to the kitchen to find more space to plan. He was the king's secretary. Apparently, he showed up for meetings, not assassinations.

"To answer your earlier question, your majesty," began the Dean, "I suspect I'm now the chief mage, but I don't want to just return things to 'business as usual' in the tower. Even if I can guarantee no children would be getting sent off to their death during my tenure, the necklaces put us into a precarious position where another Chief Mage in the future might once again decide to save his own skin. At the cost of children's lives."

"And as I said before, unless you can provide me a better alternative, I expect you to keep in the tradition of collaring each new student and mage. Even if you never use them. I need to know there is a way to solve the wraiths if we really have to," replied the king firmly. The Dean didn't look happy about it, but he nodded his assent. Even without his own necklace, the Dean didn't seem likely to disobey his monarch. Especially when Clarice was loitering in the corner with her numerous knives.

"What do we know about the curse itself? Since that curse is the only reason for the necklaces to exist at all," asked Chadwick. The Dean sighed, "we have some records, but they are very sparse. I suspect our deceased chief mage was not the only one trying to keep the truth from the students. His predecessors must have also done the same, as there was very little in the library about them, even when I was a boy."

"And there's no one else alive that might know? Historians? What about in the royal records?" Asked Chadwick.

"Before I answer that, I assume you are the one that has been breaking the necklaces? The Dean is certainly not skilled at enchantment. And I know the general enchantment skill level of everyone else in this tower except the most recently graduated. Or at least, Charles here does. You are one of the only mystery individual," said the king, looking very sternly at Chadwick. He then glanced at the Dean, "it's almost like someone was trying very hard to disguise this young lad from scrutiny.

The reports of him that Charles collected paint a suspiciously boring story." The king turned back to Chadwick for his answer.

"Yes, your majesty," said Chadwick with a gulp.

"I don't want you to tell me how you did it, since the less people that know the better. Even amongst this room, where I have encouraged everyone to speak freely, that is perhaps a step too far. What I do want to know is if there is anyone else that knows how you did it?" Asked the king.

"No, your majesty," said Chadwick.

"At least you had the good sense to do that much. Could anyone conceivably follow in your footsteps, now that it has already been done? Any written directions lying around? Or deactivated necklaces that some aspiring enchanter could use as a guide?" Asked the king. His attitude was still fairly relaxed, that of a monarch who was taking a rare chance to be informal. But his question was quite firmly worded as an order from king to subject.

Clarice, the pretty assassin, put her hands on knives at her belt and was watching Chadwick very closely. Even the large guards in the armor were staring down at him. Chadwick gave the assassin a slight glance before slowly answering the king, "I'm probably the only one alive who could break the enchantment, even if I did explain it in detail to someone. And I haven't in any way shared the knowledge of that process or left any clues behind."

There was a tense pause as everyone waited on the king's next words, he finally spoke, "well, even if it would temporarily solve our problems if I just killed you. That would be an extreme waste of talent." Everyone in the room breathed a sigh of relief, even the assassin, Clarice, seemed relieved she didn't need to kill someone so young. The king looked Chadwick up and down, "not that I'm convinced we even could. At least not without casualties."

Clarice raised an eyebrow at the king and then gave Chadwick a more assessing look.

"Don't let his appearance fool you, Clarice," began the king, "I'd give him even odds of winning if you took him by surprise. In a straight up fight, you would lose, every time. My warning stone never lies." Chadwick looked puzzled, "warning stone?" The king chuckled and shook his head, "a king must have his secrets. At least until I hire you as the royal enchanter one day."

"Anyway," said the king, "getting back to your question. The records we have aren't much better. I made a point of having Charles here look them up before we came here. They primarily revolve around the use of the necklaces. Some lists of the consequences of not keeping the magical weight within limits. Various statistics reports and maps plotting wraith appearances. Lots of focus on the original wraith problem and the damage it was causing. Much more of a focus on the agricultural disasters and famines.

Nothing to do with what else the mages tried, aside from noting that they did try and then gave up." The Dean had gotten up and started pacing, "so, no obvious avenues of research in the royal archives. No historical data here in the tower, at least none that we can easily find if previous chief mages hid it, instead of just destroying it. No one alive who knows anything useful about the curse, that I'm aware of. And no better solution to keep wraiths away than these evil necklaces?"

"That about sums it up I'd say," answered the king. What followed was an hour of the Dean trying to come up with acceptable substitutes to requiring the necklaces. Including; economic pressure, using Clarice to handle any unwilling mages, lottery systems and numerous other ideas that got rejected by the king after easily finding obvious holes in the plans. Chadwick listened in at first, but then appeared to tune out. His gold eye rapidly zooming around and looking in unusual directions that didn't seem possible.

Like straight back into his skull. Chadwick interrupted the Deans' attempt to sell the king on the concept of using a magical catapult to hurl problem mages out of the kingdom – something even the Dean didn't have his heart in to argue to his fullest, but he was unwilling to give up and say he had no ideas left.

"Would you say the wraiths are magical in nature, Dean?" Asked Chadwick. The Dean blinked, losing his train of thought and pausing his sketch of an enchanted multi-story catapult, "yes. Aside from visibly being made of something that doesn't seem to exist in nature. They only appear to respond to spells. They completely ignore soldiers or physical attempts to stop them. Based on those I would assume they are entirely magical in nature."

Chadwick nodded slowly, "I have an idea, but I think I'm missing some key information. I need to learn more about the wraiths, but I can't exactly sit down and study them. Considering we would have to deliberately raise the magical weight to even get them to appear, now that the Chief Mage is gone. He accounted for so much of our weight that we would need to wait for that to be replaced before wraiths would begin appearing regularly again."

"That and we can't predict where exactly they will show up," added the Dean.

"So, I need to talk to someone who was there when they first tried to solve it," said Chadwick.

"Hah. If any mage from that time had conquered death and was still alive to this day, they would've thrown our magical weight so far over the limit, we would be swimming in wraiths. If such a person actually exists, they certainly aren't in the kingdom anymore," said the Dean.

"You said something earlier that no one alive would have any answers," said Chadwick, then reached down into the small pack he had brought with him. He had left his spatial bag behind as it had all the stolen resources, but had been unwilling to leave a few items behind. One such item was Vander's book. He pulled it out and showed Dean the title, "when do you suppose he was alive?" The Dean's face lit up, "you are a genius, boy!"

The king paused, not finishing the bite of the cookie he was still holding, "I'm not sure I follow. You already said there was no useful knowledge written in the library."

"That's still true, your majesty. That book contains no writing at all. Nonetheless, it contains knowledge," said the Dean. The king just waved at the Dean with his half-eaten cookie, indicating he should elaborate.

"The books themselves contain the memories of a past mage. Traditionally we use them as a training aid to put the final polish on a mage's skills. You enter the book and experience being trained by that mage in an instant," the Dean said.

"So you can what, instantly absorb the memories of a past mage? Why doesn't every student just absorb all the knowledge from past mages? It seems like a quick way to be done with your training," asked the king.

"Because you don't just absorb the knowledge, you still have to learn it exactly as you would here. Interacting with the memories of the mage inside the book. You experience the full span of that time, compressed down into mere moments. From the students perspective, it is no quicker. The time is spent only on their affinity, not other subjects they still need to learn. Finally, that time can also be especially unpleasant if you got a mage who was ill-suited to training children.

Not all the mages that stored their memories for the future generations were nice," said the Dean. This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience. He continued, "there is a major hole in Chadwick's idea, each mage can only experience one book, so we would need to send brand new students in.

Since the magic of the books limits what the memories can say, the chances of those students being able to ask just the right questions that the mage's memory would be allowed to answer is low," said the Dean, losing his enthusiasm.

"Ah," began Chadwick, "I may have left out a few of the functions of the necklaces… the limit of one book was artificial. Though I suspect you still can't go into a specific book more than once, I wasn't able to go back into Vander's book after I removed my necklace."

"What are you proposing exactly, mage Chadwick?" Asked the king.

"It's a fairly simple plan that revolves around a quirk of the memory books. Everything the mage has experienced is available inside those books. In perfect detail. Meaning, if the instructor who gave his memories had read 1, 000 books, a copy of each single one of those books exists in his memories. So, my plan is to go into every memory book we have and convince the mage inside to let me read everything he has ever seen," answered Chadwick.

The Dean stared at Chadwick in disbelief, "that could be hundreds of unique books per mage. And we have thousands of memory books… it might be almost instant in the real world, but you will be in there a long time lad. That won't be easy on the mind."

"True. But I don't see a better solution right now. I might also find some mages that have good memories of interacting with wraiths. Giving me a chance to test theories I develop from reading those books. I don't see a better way yet," said Chadwick.

"But surely we could try…," the dean trailed off, then pointed at his half-drawn catapult, "other things first? Something less drastic."

"I can tell it will be a lot of work, and Chadwick doesn't seem opposed to getting his hands dirty. What is it you aren't telling me that is making you hesitant, Dean?" Asked the king.

"That time might not pass here, but your magical weight continues to grow in the books as if it had," said the Dean, taking a deep breath and continuing, "sending one young student into a book for a few months is one thing. They haven't hit the point where there is a rapid rise on the exponential curve, so the intense training they do doesn't make that much of a difference. But, Chadwick is already stronger than most mages in their 40's.

He will be reading instead of training, which slows things a little, but he has already hit a point of growth that was enough to warrant the Chief Mage sending him to the war front."

"Meaning, the length of time it takes to get the answers, could result in us straight back into the position of having excess magical weight?" Asked the king.

"Yes. We would essentially be risking Chadwick becoming too strong to stay here. On the chance that he finds answers and can solve the wraith problem once and for all," answered the Dean.

"I'd of course be willing to leave immediately if it came to that," offered Chadwick.

"Hopefully you still feel that way after your time in the books. That will be many years away in your perspective. My main concern is that I'd be giving up the most skilled enchanter this kingdom has seen in a long time. If we did nothing and carried on as things had been before we would be well within the acceptable level of magical weight, to the point that we could withdraw all mages from the Siyene border.

Chadwick could come work for me and still attempt to solve the wraith problem through regular trial and error. No one else needs to die. Even if he fails, it would likely be many many years before he is required to leave the kingdom," said the king.

"This is true. We could play it safe with little hope of a result. Or, throw all our cards on the table and try to solve this plague on our kingdom once and for all. Only one of those methods can result in me not collaring innocent children. I think you know which method I would prefer," said the Dean.

"I'm inclined to let young Chadwick decide his own fate. The results of this choice could affect him long after we are dead. The young should decide their future. Allowing stodgy old men like us decide what is best for the next generation just results in more stodgy old men," said the king, looking to Chadwick for an answer.

"I want to risk it. The answer is in there somewhere and it will change the whole kingdom if I find it," said Chadwick decisively.

"Very well. If all else fails, I can lend the Dean one of my engineers to design his catapult. What do you need to make this work?" Asked the king.

"Supplies. Lots of supplies," said Chadwick.

"Are you certain you can bring the entire wagon with you?" The Dean asked, looking slightly skeptical.

"It's something I remember from my first day in Vander's memory book. He had asked why the tower hadn't sent me with a whole cart of supplies. It's not about how much you can carry, it's about what I believe I can take with me," said Chadwick.

"So, you wouldn't be able to convince yourself that the tower's larders are something you can bring with you. But it's fairly easy to believe you could travel with the wagon. Hence us moving the entire larder into this wagon?" Mused the Dean.

"Exactly. Even though we will just put all these supplies back once I'm done. We still have to go through the process of loading them up," said Chadwick.

"Interesting. I'd never been able to find much on the inner workings of the memory books. Considering the necklaces had a restriction on their usage, it makes sense that some prior Chief Mage had removed such information. They really didn't want people making too much use of them. The students are almost done bringing out all the memory books by the way. I think the current tally is over 3, 000 memory books. With a great deal of overlap for elemental type mages.

I think we have found at least 500 memory books from just fire mages. I honestly never knew there were that many hidden in the depths of the library," said the Dean, tapping the list in his hand that the mage organizing the books had provided. Chadwick slid a large ham into a gap on the wagon, firmly wedging it in place, "did the memory book locator work well?"

"Oh yes. Quite an ingenious bit of enchanting there. I would never have thought to make books become sparkly based on proximity. A single mage could walk down an aisle and then the students just piled up all the sparkly books. A very elegant solution to what might have taken us months," said the Dean. Chadwick nodded at the answer, slightly distracted as he adjusted items piled onto the wagon to fit even more, "oh good. And did we get the bribes?"

"I wish you would stop calling them that. I'm still waiting on the dock master, but he was certain he could get most of your list within a few hours. I'm still opposed to this belief that you will need to go to such lengths to persuade the mages within these books to help us. They are former graduates of the tower and willingly gave their memories to be used as training aids. Why wouldn't they want to help you save the kingdom?" Asked the Dean.

"Even if they are willing, a little brandy goes a long way when greasing social wheels. I doubt you would try to argue that point with Elvera. She would get you too drunk to argue if nothing else. The first time I really got Mage Sloan to open up was with some honeycomb. The memories in these books might be able to conjure up anything they had experienced in their life, but I guarantee there is something on that list I gave you that they haven't tried," said Chadwick, hopping down from the wagon.

Finally satisfied that he had all the food packed in.

"How do you even know about some of these things? I'm still not sure I want to know what stinkweed is, or why you think a mage might be interested in it," said the Dean, frowning at Chadwick. Chadwick laughed, "I suspect you wouldn't want to know. I'm fairly certain my father didn't want me to know, but he didn't realize what was in the margins of the book he had me scribe. Let's just say that it can be…

'placed in the body' with some interesting results." Chadwick mimed his finger being inserted somewhere unpleasant.

"It's traditionally used in deer breeding. Then some enterprising fellow tried it on himself one day. The rest is history. Though one of the more entertaining bits of history."

"Good lord. The things people do for fun. I retract my interest in the list. Never mention stinkweed again," said the Dean, shaking his head.

"Ah, there's the dock master now." The dock master was slightly out of breath as he pulled along a small wheeled cart, "I was able to get everything you asked for except the Essence of Vaff. Nobody had so much as heard of that one. And I certainly had to ask around for some of these items. I'd have some very serious questions for some of my staff if I didn't have to promise that I wouldn't ask them how they knew where to find certain things. Bad enough that they even knew what they were.

What does someone even do with crystalized horse soporifics?" The Dean shook his head slightly, "better to not ask questions you do not want the answers to. Trust me on this." Chadwick rubbed his hands together excitedly, "excellent, I hadn't figured you would be able to find everything on that list. So there was a lot of crossover. Only skipping one of the drugs that induce that kind of euphoria is no big loss — the others are quite similar.

As soon as I load those up, we will just be waiting on the books before we can start." The Dean shook his head, "the way you talk at your young age is very hard to get my head around."

"Vander used to say the same thing, but it didn't stop him from educating me on every possible pitfall of being a mage, things no child should know," Chadwick said as he fished out a small box that was wrapped in lead and carefully opened it, "like this one for example. For a regular person, this liquid taken directly into the blood will produce an addict. They will do literally anything to get more. The more unpleasant type of whorehouses use it on the girls." The Dean looked horrified, "that's basically slavery!"

Chadwick raised an eyebrow, "And the necklaces weren't? You are starting to see why Vander expanded my education. He saw a child who was already one foot into slavery, without even knowing it. He decided to give me the tools to escape that, and the knowledge to make sure it never happened again," Chadwick said, then took a deep breath and continued, "this particular liquid becomes much more dangerous when a mage takes it. The moment he feels the craving for more, he loses control over his affinity.

He will vent his entire magical pool, all at once. In a completely uncontrolled fashion." The Dean was backing slowly away from the box, "I make it a personal policy not to swear around students or children. But that's fucked up. I sort of understand the euphoria drugs, it's not like one of those will harm a memory inside a book. But what possible use could this have as a bribe?"

"The tower used to maintain a magic-proof room to contain a mage who had tried this drug. One who had earned some assistance through years of heroic service. They were trying to cure him of the effects and needed a safe space to keep him, so that his venting of magic wouldn't destroy anything. I'm unsure if they ever succeeded in curing him but the addicted mage did give a lot of detailed reports.

He said the venting process was pure bliss, better than any other drug he had tried, and he had tried a lot of them," answered Chadwick.

"Some of the mages out there might have tried everything else. I doubt they would have tried this. Bit of a last resort." The Dean shook his head slowly, "I think I've heard enough about the contents of those boxes. At least I feel better knowing some of those boxes contain a dozen types of chocolates and liqueurs. Far more appropriate gifts for you to take. Let's run through the plan one last time while we wait." Chadwick took a seat on the wagon, "very well, this will be my spot."

"Ok good. This stack here will be the first memory books. And we will have a team just bringing more books over from that main pile. I have a system for the order I want them in, but you don't need to worry about that, we will take care of it. Completed books will go over the other side of the courtyard there. I will be the one handing you each book. You have your notebook beside you to fill in, assuming you learned something useful," said the Dean.

"Anything we are missing?" Asked Chadwick.

"Ah, just one thing I think. The stewardess insisted on a fresh batch of cookies," responded the Dean. Chadwick smiled, "I guess we can wait a little longer. You start a proper adventure without cookies."