Chapter 51: 51. Carriage Ride

Excerpt from ‘The Tenets of House Deepstar,’ author unknown.

“12. Let not a single glint pass you by—a gem in the dark presages ten more.”

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After weeks of travelling on Chime’s back exposed to the cold wind, Yenna thoroughly appreciated travelling inside an enclosed carriage. However, she had not expected to share that carriage with the powerful ruler of a Miluran noble House.

Sitting opposite Yenna in the carriage was Aroearoe, Suee and Sergeant Myuu—beside her was Narasanha, holding Mysilia in a raised palm. From without, the carriage seemed barely suitable for a handful of yolm, maybe a couple of kesh if they tucked themselves in tight. However, the inside was enchanted with a dimensional magic that increased the interior space—all six of them had ample room to themselves with no need to squeeze. A small brass automaton-arm had extended smoothly from the roof of the carriage when they all climbed in, and was now calmly serving everyone tea.

“I’ve called you to join me for the time being, as I would like to explain to you what was discussed with House Stormsea before our… incident.” 

Aroearoe crossed her arms and leaned back in her plush seat, chains and jewellery jingling with her. The woman’s horn reached awfully close to the roof, where Yenna noticed a few scrapes in the velvet-lined walls. This must be her personal carriage, Yenna thought to herself. With practiced ease, Aroearoe explained the predicament.

“The priestess’ vision came to us shortly before more tangible news. A string of high-profile attacks on the properties of smaller Houses, including thefts, kidnappings and murders led to a pointed increase in tension amongst otherwise friendly families. No one was sure who to blame for it all, and many heads were calling for compensation from those they perceived to have committed these crimes. Some retaliated against their suspected foes, further muddying the waters—others pointed fingers at the largest of the Houses.”

“Classic tactics, that,” Narasanha chimed in. “Cause a ruckus, let your targets think it was their usual enemies—they strike back and start their own war. In the midst of the chaos, you’ve free reign to do what you please.”

Aroearoe gave a nod. “Exactly. Whoever is doing this is good—any House that caught someone in the act would be parading them around the streets. What evidence we have is shaky at best, especially as many of the Houses aren’t cooperating right now. We know that the perpetrators are well-organised, magically trained and tight-lipped—all the bounties you like, and we’ve barely anything to show for it.”

At least we’ve got the priestess’ vision. How did it go? ‘A war painted in blood, waged for the dark purpose of vilest sorcery.’ Wait. Sorcery?

“Sorcerers!” 

Yenna hadn’t meant to blurt it out, but all eyes were on her now. This time, Sergeant Myuu spoke up.

“You’re familiar with them? I wasn’t aware that you had further information on this case.”

The sergeant’s brown eyes locked with Yenna’s, as though she was hiding some juicy morsel. Yenna gulped.

“I’m, um, not terribly familiar,” the mage sputtered, fiddling with the end of her braid. “I know that, long ago, they infused themselves with beast blood to gain power. My master—erm, the one who told me all this, that is—believed they had all been wiped out by Aulprean mages a while back.”

“Then you have some basic knowledge.” Myuu gave a small sigh, disappointed. “I’d hoped for more, but it saves half the explanation. Head Deepstar, if I may?”

Myuu looked up to Aroearoe, and the imperious woman gave a small nod. “My daughter’s mage and bodyguard are to be trusted with the matter. So long as they understand that this is to be kept secret.”

Both Yenna and Narasanha gave a nod in agreement. The mage felt a pair of eyes on her—out of the corner of her eye, she saw Mysilia’s stern glare. It suddenly made sense why the mereu had accompanied them—Aroearoe had likely demanded someone she could trust to witness the agreement, and Yenna couldn’t think of a singular person among the expedition crew more likely to tattle than Mysilia. Not that I have any intention of testing that assumption.

“With that said, I’ve been tracking this cult for some time now.” Sergeant Myuu suddenly became more animated—her back straightened up, her eyes shone. Yenna recognised the face of someone deeply fascinated by a subject and finally able to talk about it.

“Within the Miluran guard network, we share information between cities and towns regarding crimes and internal threats. The original purpose of this was to alert neighbouring towns that danger may come their way, but it has since made it very easy to trace the actions of organised crime across the state. Certain agents of the law, such as myself, are assigned to investigate all reports relating to particular cases. I have been assigned to understanding and uncovering anything related to the Cult of the Word.”

“Cult of the Word?” Yenna frowned. “I knew a cult was involved, but it sounds like you’ve got far more information than I.”

“Not much more, I’m afraid.” Myuu gave a small sigh, part of that excitement in her deflating. “I’ve been tracking them for years, but they’ve been very quiet all that time—the name is just what I’ve been calling them, rather than what they call themselves. The one piece of evidence they compulsively leave behind are scrawled references to a ‘Word’. As far as I can tell, they believe it grants them power. I’m not magically inclined, but I imagine a singular word bearing so much power is not particularly normal?”

Her statement transformed into a question that Yenna belatedly realised she was expected to answer. “Oh, no. Even simple arcane spells are derived from several key phrases—singular words on their own rarely have much effect on magic, if any. Unless it were a particularly long word, that is. I did hear about an old master who tried to create a spell whose entire activation phrase was a single word long, but the word itself was… lengthsome, and possibly not even a single word¹. I doubt this is similar, haha.”

Yenna couldn’t help but chuckle and attempt to wave it off as a joke, but Sergeant Myuu looked interested—it took another insistence from Yenna to assure the woman that this was more of an academic point rather than any serious link. With some more prodding, the sergeant continued.

“All in all, the cult has not left their mark on these attacks on House property and people—they aren’t claiming responsibility for the chaos.”

“Then, how do you know it’s the cult?” Narasanha went to cross her arms, remembered Mysilia, and opted to cross just three of them.

“It’s the kind of magic they use. I’ve procured devices that can tell certain kinds of spells apart—they react differently to different methods of spellcasting, though I couldn’t tell you how they work. It can accurately tell arcane magecraft from divinomancy, for instance.”

Sergeant Myuu reached into a pouch at her belt and pulled out a small brass sphere. Studded with round nodules of glass, parts of it glowed gently in different colours. Yenna recognised it in principle—a similar device was used to tell apart spells based on what subset of arcane magic they were a part of. However, something that Myuu said interested her.

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“Divinomancy? I’ve not heard the term.” Yenna silently cursed her discipline’s rather insular perspectives—they rarely spoke about magic outside of the arcane, and often as ‘lesser’, not worthy of study.

“It is a somewhat reductive term.” Suee was the one to respond this time, her whisper-quiet voice hard to hear over the rattling of carriage wheels. “The good sergeant refers to magic similar to my own. Blessings from higher powers—magic from the divine.”

“I would’ve thought a mage would know all about it.” Myuu looked somewhat bemused. “Divinomancy is quite common in Milur, alongside the magic that House craftsfolk and artificers use.”

Magic from the divine sounded like the exact kind of thing that an Aulprean mage would pointedly refuse to acknowledge—‘higher powers’ meant gods, and Aulpre had a rather poor opinion of things that called themselves gods. Even having seen some of Suee’s magic, Yenna was still skeptical that the source of her magic could be called ‘divine’, though she wasn’t about to start that debate here and now.

“Could I have a look at your detector, Sergeant?” Yenna held out a hand.

Myuu gave a nod and handed over the sphere—it was heavier than it looked, the lights inside its glass nodes shimmering where it touched Yenna’s skin. The mage brought up her other hand to attempt a spell, only to recall her current predicament—the ability to mentally ‘tune out’ her injury only meant that it made it too easy to forget her wrist had broken.

Instead, Yenna had Narasanha hold it—then Mysilia, by extension of her being in the bodyguard’s proffered hand. The mereu held the sphere between her legs, looking distinctly annoyed by the intrusion.

“You better not ruin my dress with your spells, mage.” The feathers on Mysilia’s head stood on end, puffed up to make her look a bit bigger. “This dress is Miluran silk! I’ll not bear a single stain upon it.”

“Don’t worry, I’m just going to cast a few simple diagnostic spells. Sergeant, as I don’t have a point of reference for your device, I’m going to rely on you for its reading. Is that okay?” Yenna looked over at the woman as she readied a spell in her hand—Myuu gave a small nod, and the experiment began.

Yenna’s first spell was a simple light spell—the exact same thing she had used to explain the importance of magic circles with her new students. A singular circle infused with magic, glowing a soft white. A scintillating speckle of rainbow-coloured light danced across the glass nodules of the brass sphere.

“That’s the reaction for, uh, basic magic, I suppose you’d call it.” Sergeant Myuu gave a small shrug. “From my understanding, it means the detector isn’t quite sure—the spell isn’t complex enough to give it any real clues.”

“Makes sense—circles infused with magic are, as far as I’m learning, fairly standard procedure. Now…” Yenna waved her hand about and added to her glowing circle. Symbols filled the space inside the circle to create an illusory image of a flat horizon, showing the position of the sun—a spell for telling the time. The sphere’s nodules shifted to display a distinct light blue.

Sergeant Myuu gave a nod. “Arcane magic, though I’m sure you didn’t need me to tell you that.”

“Alright. One last test.”

For this one, Yenna needed to concentrate. The magic she had witnessed from the beast-man sorcerer had been a strange mixture of arcane magecraft, witchcraft and Suee’s magic—divinomancy. While Yenna wasn’t confident enough to reproduce the priestess’ spells, she could certainly produce a spell containing the first two.

Yenna conjured a small flame from an arcane circle between her fingertips. The sphere remained light blue, though Mysilia looked terribly concerned.

“Mage, I told you! Be careful with that!” Mysilia looked ready to throw the brass sphere if she didn’t get her way—Yenna calmed her with her other hand.

“It’s alright! I’m not going to let it get near you—I just need to confirm it. That the magic I saw was the same that the sergeant saw.”

With a few more twitches of her fingertips, Yenna concentrated on the colour of Wroth. The flame took on a brighter hue, expanding to lick at the invisible edges of the container her arcane circle produced. With a bit of determined thought, Yenna managed to cause the colour of the flame to subtly shift to a slightly darker shade—not quite the dark-tinged flame she had produced in her blind rage at the water elemental, but still distinctly unpleasant. Crimson forks prodded the edge of its invisible cage, all the more determined to break free.

Myuu’s detector had gone from a light blue to a wavering smattering of blues and reds, then to a kind of murky red-brown. It nearly matched the colour of the Wrothful flame, though it reminded Yenna more of poorly mixed paint. About as artful as my mixing of disciplines.

“That’s it!” Myuu pointed in surprise, and Yenna dispelled her flame. “Not quite exactly it, but very close to it. The same kind of magic we find lingering at each of the crime scenes. It’s potent magic—lingers around for ages afterwards.”

Yenna was pleased her hunch had been correct, though she couldn’t help but feel she hadn’t done anything more than confirm what was already known. This ‘cult of the word’ were sorcerers, wielding magic that was a fusion of several disciplines—one of them being witchcraft. They had to be the sorcerers that Lumale had described. If so, why were they back now?

“This is all fascinating,” Aroearoe waved a hand, her lack of interest clear, “But can we get to the point?”

“Yes, Head Deepstar.” Myuu gave a small bow in her seat, an awkward crunch forward. “The reason I am here is because House Deepstar has a vested interest in seeing this cult dealt with—their own investigations collided with my own, and we’ve recently begun working together.”

“With the resources of House Deepstar, we can only go so far.” Aroearoe’s patience looked to run short, the head taking over the explanation. “This is why I’ve called my daughter back—and why I treated with House Stormsea, too. We have a plan to drag this cult into the light of day, and let the sun scour it away. It shall be a war painted in blood indeed. Their blood.”

The head of House Deepstar gave Yenna a look that made her shiver. She wondered if a mistake hadn’t been made somewhere—had the cult tipped its hand by attempting to attack Aroearoe? Or had the woman fooled herself into believing she could unearth a cult of bloodline sorcerers that had remained hidden for many long years? Either way, Yenna sensed that she was going to get stuck in the middle of it.

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¹ - Though historians disagree on exactly who created the spell, the so-called “Single-Word Spell” is something of an old mage’s joke. To get around the limitations of not being able to use separate words, the actual phrasing of the spell is more like a mantra—it must be spoken in one singular, unbroken breath without pauses and takes the average speaker about five minutes to say. Successfully casting the spell causes a shower of confetti to erupt over the mage’s head, conjures a glass of wine into their hand, emits the sound of a merry fanfare and causes the mage to glow. Speaking even one syllable incorrectly causes the entire spell to fail, usually with comedic results—depending on where the error was, the ‘rewards’ at the end of the spell are altered. I myself attempted it off the cuff, and was showered in wine. My glass full of confetti was a poor consolation.