Noble Arcana

It’s our nature to enjoy life. To be ethereal, flighty, and mischievous. If we didn’t take advantage of every one of life’s pleasures that’s on offer to us as the nobility, what would all of those without titles be working so hard for?

Lady Arbessa in a Letter to the Widow Sitsuc

After they returned from Dame Pryors Solomon went out to the garden to see how much progress was being made. The men and women he’d hired to assist Poth seemed to be mostly focused on clearing ground and were doing a good job of it. Poth himself seemed uncomfortable with giving them directions, but they seemed more than capable of a bit of self direction where needed.

Once he was done checking in, he did a lap around the manor, sweeping the grounds as he moved. The statue in his room had turned out to be magical in nature, and he was hoping his new ability to see mana would allow him to find more of the secrets hidden by his uncle. He noticed the occasional flicker of something, but they were inconsistent and whenever he investigated more closely he was unable to find anything. It could be that enchanted objects only showed mana when they were activated.

He returned inside and had Selina bring him a coffee to clear his mind after his surprisingly heavy lunch. He hadn’t gotten all of the answers he’d hoped for, but he’d certainly learned more. It was unfortunate that what he’d learned seemed to just lead to more questions. Threen was magical, that was clear. Solomon was uncertain of if he was a mage or something else. He certainly had an inhuman quality to him. Was he a changeling? Or some kind of magical creation? He had no way of knowing. He said he’d come from Lindal, along with the other servants. That was on the frontier, near the border with the frost elves. He could perhaps be one, but that would mean he was somehow disguising blue skin.

Aside from what he’d learned about Threen he had also learned more about the former mayor. The records had nothing that could’ve told him that the mayor was formerly a noble and of a family that had roots in Moonfallow for generations. It was likely common knowledge among the locals. The rumors of previous generations murdering their wives reminded him of the missing women, but he had no explicit thread with which to tie the two things together.

He finished his coffee and took a moment to focus on his mana. It was churning less, which was good, but it was still difficult to get an accurate impression of it and bring it under control. He frowned, he wanted to be able to cast spells without worrying he was going to blow out every window or cause an explosion, but at the rate things were going he wouldn’t stabilize for months.

He pushed himself up to his feet, smoothing out the creases of his suit as he began walking toward the library. He nodded at Barnabus, who was taking some measurements, as he passed and the man quickly hid his missing hand and gave a slight bow. Solomon reached the library and closed the doors to it, locking them. They’d only recently been installed, but he’d asked Barnabus to make it a priority for him. It likely seemed strange, him sitting in a mostly empty library, but he wouldn’t be the first eccentric lord of a country estate.

He activated the suit of armor, having it reveal the secret passage, and thanked it before he went down into the hidden chamber. He glanced, as he always did, at the dead god, reminding himself that he’d need to study the chains that had bound it when he had the opportunity. Anything that could bind a god was worth knowing about.

He returned his attention to the ciphered journals. He took a few moments to add the ciphered version of the name “Threen” to his notes before he began to continue his search for keywords. He marked them as he found them, but opted to translate any passages with the word “spell” in them immediately. He had little time before the next Arcana meeting. If he didn’t provide a piece of spellwork they found valuable he’d lose an opportunity to learn more of his Uncle’s secrets, be part of a secret magical society that he could leverage, and likely be killed by Death. He considered the ritual of mana transference, but given the secrecy, cost, and circumstances he felt it would be unwise. The ability to make anyone a mage would fundamentally alter the Empire and the world.

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He focused on the middle journals, as he assumed any spells mentioned in the earlier ones likely wouldn’t be of interest to the Arcana.

… The spell worked. I was able to use the summoning ritual in spite of my lack of mana. I just needed a sufficient source of mana from elsewhere. In this case the blood of faery sufficed by mixing it with the ink used to draw the summoning circle. The demon was not what I expected. It looked like a tall thin man and his face was always concealed. He even wore a black suit in the most recent style. His voice… I can still hear his voice…

Solomon frowned at that, writing on his notesheets the use of mana infused blood as ink as well as the mentions of the demon. Solomon was very interested in what else his uncle had said, but he didn’t see any mentions of how he’d cast the spell for the summoning so he moved on, jumping to a much later journal.

…The spellwork needed to make the repository safe to access at a distance took some time to complete. Months to gather the materials, but by then I had mana of my own so things became considerably easier. Reading the books within the repository is always dangerous, even now. Its builders seemed to have no sense of organization. You can pull a scroll from a shelf and suddenly find yourself blind for reading a passage never meant for human eyes, or have a phrase stuck within your mind forever driving you mad because you saw the wrong words in the wrong order…

There was another mention of the Repository. It seemed as if it was a dangerous place meant for the storage of forbidden knowledge. Exactly what he was looking for. He began to comb through earlier journals looking for where it was mentioned. Unfortunately, Uncle Victor mentioned it frequently in passing so it took some time to find a more detailed description.

…It seems infinite, and it very well might be. There seems to be copies of every spell, ritual, and grimoire in existence spanning a distance of miles. I’ve spent much of my life working through just a small corner of it, but I still haven’t even made a dent. Part of the issue is the danger of the place, many of the texts are lethal or carry insidious effects. I’ve found evil spirits, dark gods, and demons leaving traces of themselves within many of them. The other issue is that you never know what you’ll find. I once spent a month translating a scroll from Ancient Elvish only to realize it detailed spells meant for encouraging the growth of a very specific type of tree. Of course it is a paradise for me. I have spent years of my life searching through it and trying to learn all I can. Even now though I do not know of its origins, nor have I ever seen anyone else wandering between its shelves. Perhaps no one else could pay the price to locate it as I have…

Solomon placed the translated sheet to the side pinching the bridge of his nose between two fingers. His constant headache along with the tedium of translating the journals were wearing on him. He had the clues he needed to find what he was looking for and he still had six days to find and present the spell to the Arcana.

He stood up from the desk, stumbling a bit as he realized that his leg was asleep. He shook it a bit as he walked, bracing himself against his walking stick as he made his way up the stairs. He heard nothing outside the chamber and so exited with a thank you to the empty knight and headed to his room. Moments after he settled in, Melissa entered.

“Supper, lord?” she asked.

“Please. Whatever Claire has prepared.”

She bowed and left, leaving Solomon alone with his thoughts. He closed his eyes and leaned back in his chair. He was tired. Between his sleep being interrupted, translating parts of his Uncle’s journals and meeting with Dame Pryor this was the busiest he’d been since he’d performed the ritual. It wouldn’t let up either. In the morning he’d need to head into town to review more of Mayor Neiman’s remaining documents, meet with several administrative candidates, and approve some of Vantus’s chosen guards. He wanted the garrison to be fully staffed as soon as possible. At the end of the week he had his hike through the woods to the old mine and the lumber camps.

He rapped his knuckles twice on the desk in front of him as he sat forward. It was exactly what he’d always hoped for.