She couldn’t see any other magic in the room, not even around the door at the back of the office.Umagiweren’t allowed across that threshold. So far as she knew, no one was. If there was going to be more magic anywhere in this room, she would have expected it to be there, warding that door. But perhaps wards only showed themselves in the presence of other magic?
Aware of Primage Zev’s eyes upon her, Melliandra emptied the waste bin by Vadim Maur’s desk, bobbed a quick bow in the direction of the Primage, and scurried out. She pushed the cart down the hall to the next door, pausing to look back and watch the Primage reseal the wards protecting the High Mage’s room.
There. She could see them again. Those shining threads of magic.
Eld ~ Koderas
Vadim Maur walked beside Primage Grule, the Mage he’d tasked with restoring Koderas to its full, pre-Wars capacity. He’d already visited the enormous forges, where blacksmiths hammeredsel’doringots into swords and armor, and the foundries where moltensel’dorwas cast into barbed arrowheads, spears, and the like. Now, the two Mages passed through an archway and down a series of railed walkways that overlooked Koderas’s siege workshops and the various machining and assembly rooms where thousands ofumagitoiled round the clock constructing the massive battering rams and trebuchets that would be used to grind enemy fortresses into dust. No less than three full rooms were dedicated to the manufacture of bowcannon and their massive, tairen-killing bolts made from tree trunks jacketed with barbedsel’dorsheaths and razor-sharp spearheads.
“You have done well, Grule.” Praising those who served him wasn’t Vadim’s strong suit, but Grule’s last centuries of effort had exceeded even Vadim’s highest expectations. “Not even during the previous Wars did Koderas operate with such seamless efficiency.”
“Thank you, Most High. There is no prize I value more than your approval.” A flush of pleasure touched Grule’s tanned cheeks. Unlike most sun-bereft Mages, who toiled all their lives beneath the surface of Eld, Grule had spent the last year aboveground, overseeing the start of Vadim Maur’s next great achievement.
They had reached the end of the elevated walkway. Grule opened the door at the end of the walkway, and the Mages stepped out of the hot noise of the production floor into a cool, dark corridor. From there, they climbed a flight of stairs that led to a pair of heavy double doors covered with swirling patterns of rune-etched silver and bloodred crystals in the sigils of Seledorn, God of Shadows. Grule reached for the heavy, intricately wrought silver-and-sel’dorhandle and murmured the words of a release spell while his fingers traced an unlocking weave in the air. Unseen bolts shifted with an audible click.
“After you, Most High,” Grule murmured, and with a wave of his hand, the doors swung open.
Vadim Maur stepped over the threshold and into the gray light of the cloud-filtered afternoon sun. He squeezed his eyes closed against the brightness. It was the first time he’d stepped foot aboveground since the scorching of the world a thousand years ago, and even much-filtered sunlight was a hundred times brighter than the dim, sconce-lit shadows of Boura Fell.
“Forgive me, Master Maur.” Grule leapt forward to block the sunlight with his body and cast the High Mage in his broad shadow. “Shall I weave screens for your eyes?” He lifted his hands in anxious anticipation.
The old Vadim Maur, trapped in his aged and decaying body, would have snapped in rage. But the newly incarnated Vadim Maur, housed in a body both young and fit, was not so quick to anger.
“No need.” Already Vadim’s new, younger eyes were adjusting to the abundance of light. He lifted a shading hand over his eyes and squinted at the world around him.
They were standing on a windswept point of land formed by the confluence of two great rivers: the Frost heading down from the Mandolay Mountains in the north, and the Selas, flowing east from its source near the Rhakis. Vadim turned in a slow circle, drinking in this long-unseen world. Behind them lay the mile-long opensel’dorpit that housed the new, much-improved, Koderas. Clouds of thick black smoke boiled up from Koderas’s great fires. What trees might have once surrounded the pit had long since died away, and all that remained was thick brush, covered in heavy gray layers of ash andsel’dordust.
Vadim’s chest swelled with pride. Some who looked upon Koderas might have seen ruin in the ash and soot and poisonous gases choking the life from the surrounding forest. But not Vadim. He saw Koderas for what it truly was:power.His power. Raw and brutal and ugly, perhaps, but indisputably great nonetheless.
He turned the final quarter of his circuit and beheld the second reason he had come: the shining glory of Toroc Maur—the first Elden stronghold to extend aboveground since the scorching of the world.
Though little more than a massive outer wall and scaffolding now, when completed the immense citadel would crouch on the banks of the Selas River like a great, horned spider, its gleaming black spires stabbing up from the center of a wide, high-walled and well-defended central keep, towering nearly as high as its foundation, the subterranean levels of Boura Maur, plunged deep. The first soaringsel’dorbridge that spanned the river to connect Boura Maur to Koderas had already been built. Flanking the bridge’s entrance, two enormous flags of Eld, rich purple embroidered with silvery moons and stars set in the exact configuration of Vadim Maur’s birth, snapped in the wind.
Emotions coiled inside Vadim: satisfaction, pride, eagerness. Centuries of planning and toil were finally coming to fruition.
“Show me,” he urged.
After touring the existing construction of Toroc Maur and examining in detail the plan for the next stage of construction, Vadim followed Grule up the stone steps to the citadel’s high, well-defended walls where cannoneers had assembled beside the bowcannon mounted on the battlements.
“Ah,” Vadim said. “The new bowcannon bolts. You perfected the spell? “
“I did. I believe you will be very pleased.” Grule nodded to the cannoneers, who immediately began firing the newest weapon—bowcannons bolts spelled by magic to fly faster and higher than ever before—fast and high enough to outpace even a Tairen Soul flying at his top magic-powered speed. The High Mage spent a full quarter bell watching the cannoneers demonstrate the splendid performance of the new bolts.
“Well done, Grule,” he praised when the exhibition concluded. “You may well have just ensured our victory. With the skies tairen-free, nothing can stop my Army of Darkness.”
“You honor me, Most High.” Primage Grule bowed low. “But there is more. I’ve added a new improvement since my last report. The idea came to me after I read a book of Drogan blood spells. The potential is… incalculable.”
Vadim arched a brow. “I am intrigued. What is this new improvement? “
“If you please, Most High, allow me to demonstrate. Do you see thatumagirunning in that field there?” He pointed to a tiny spot on one of the distant grounds and handed Vadim a telescoping spyglass.
Vadim lifted the glass and saw a man in tattered rags running for the forest edge. “You are letting one of yourumagiescape?”
“One of our less valuable prisoners from the battle at Teleon. I told him if he reached the edge of the forest alive, I would grant him his freedom.” Grule gave smile. “I thought he might run faster with a little incentive. Cannoneer Raegus, prepare to fire.” He nodded at the cannoneer on the far end of the battlement. The man turned the crank to reposition his bowcannon.
“I don’t understand. He is aiming away from the target.”
Grule’s smile grew wider. “Indeed he is, Most High.” He raised his voice and called, “Fire when ready, cannoneer.”
