Shadows in the Smoke - Chapter 47 - Interesting Schemas

  “The Republic thrives on industry, but industry is not everything in life. The nobleborn used to take huge swathes of land for their own amusement. The best of those have been taken and preserved by the state for the good of the People so that ordinary Citizens can enjoy natural peace away from the hustle and bustle of our cities.”

  The Struggle for Freedom by Bjarne Midthun

  =====

  Ester’s mind was whirling as she made her way back to her room.

  Was Lindholm actually planning something with the Republic’s government? Or did she know something was going to happen? She’d always seemed like she was a true believer in the Republic’s ideals, foolish as they were. So why was she so critical when she spoke to Ester?

  Ester's stomach sank as she thought over their conversation again.

  Was Lindholm what she might turn into if she wasn’t careful? She wanted to be able to fight like her, to be a hero like her, but the woman wasn’t a normal hero. She was disloyal, she drank far too much and she hated the Empire. Or did she? She’d said she wanted peace. Was that just a platitude? Whatever was the case, she seemed to actually like Ester. Great Spirits only knew why. She wasn’t quite sure how to react to the idea of someone in authority actually liking her.

  Ester opened the door to her room and absentmindedly began to set up her simple wards.

  Did she really care what Lindholm thought of the Republic’s government? The woman wanted to fight and defeat the undead. The Empire wanted that too. Whether or not she hated the Empire almost didn’t matter in those circumstances and, for all Ester knew, she might well be better at defeating the undead than the Republic’s current leadership. She had to admit that sitting there hungry in the cold fortress without any reinforcements didn’t make her feel much sympathy towards them.

  She finished with the wards and pulled out her dagger. It was time to finish her Schema if she was going to be going on a dangerous mission. It was hard to focus with her mind still whirling though.

  Ideas for aligning the runes flickered through her mind as she chewed over what Lindholm had said. Ultimately, the real question was whether she should do anything about it. Assuming she was lucky enough to survive the next few days anyway.

  What had Lindholm actually told her? Not all that much really and even if she did dislike her government, would she actually do anything beyond drunken grumbling? Ester suspected she might. The way people spoke about her and everything Ester had seen of her suggested Lindholm did whatever she felt like. She might win or she might not. She might be worse for the Empire, with the anger in her eyes whenever she mentioned the Undying Queen, but then the rest of the Republic hardly liked the Empire either.

  With a small growl of frustration, Ester focused her mind, ready to start to engrave tiny runes onto her dagger.

  Who would she even tell anyway? Would she go and tell Sonja that the Republic’s greatest hero might, just might, be plotting a coup? Based off her having a drunken moan while under siege. The idea was ridiculous.

  That settled it. Let the Republicans have their own little fights. If, when, she got back to Nilrava, she’d tell Ambassador Hatami and he could decide whether to do anything or not. That was his job and then it wouldn’t be her fault if everything ended up on fire.

  “Railati.” The first rune formed, tiny but perfect on the blade.

  =====

  The next day, when Ester was sat at breakfast, there was a tension in the air that she hadn’t felt before. Not that the canteen was filled with happy chatter at the best of times, but this was something different. Nervous glances were being exchanged between soldiers and the conversation was no more than quiet intermittent mutters. It felt like they were on the edge of a war, but one with each other.

  She tried to chew her watery stew, just to make what little there was in it last longer. But it didn’t do much to distract her from the Republicans’ strange behaviour. Even the officers at her table weren’t talking.

  As the mutters and glances stretched on, Ester couldn’t help noticing that there were looks being directed at her too. Not from the officers at her table, but some of the soldiers around the room were definitely watching her out of the corners of their eyes.

  She was used to being stared at by this point, even with hostility, but this seemed more focused. It didn’t take long for the pressure to build up until she sighed and turned her attention to Loga. He’d been a bit friendlier to her since she’d saved his life and he was senior enough to know what was going on. Hopefully.

  “Arcanist-Captain Loga,” she kept her voice, low matching the rest of the room. “What is going on? Why is everyone so, I do not know, tense?”

  Loga grunted and glanced around before answering, just as quietly.

  “It’s meant to be a secret, but the way everyone’s acting, news has already spread. Captain Lovas is dead.”

  “Oh.” After the man’s rudeness to her, Ester couldn’t quite bring herself to express any regret. “I see.”

  But he’d been publically rude to her. Her toes curled as she realised why people were staring more than usual. “It wasn’t—”

  Something must have shown on her face because Loga cut her off before she could even finish.

  “He fell off the walls. Without any witnesses, but don’t worry you were nowhere near there at the time.”

  Relief flooded through Ester, almost as quickly extinguished by a flare of irritation.

  “The first thing you did was check whether I had killed the man? I am not a murderer!”

  “No, no, no.” Loga held up his hands. “No one is accusing you, but we had to check, some people might unfairly judge you.”

  Ester didn’t bother to do more than scowl at that.

  “I think we’ll have to make an announcement to the troops. We’ll say it was an unfortunate accident and let it be known more discreetly that we’ve checked for foul play.”

  “So you do not think he was murdered then?” Ester’s mind went back to Vegard’s dark statement about Lovas’ cowardice after the battle and Lindholm’s distaste for the man. Had one of them killed him? It wasn’t hard to imagine Vegard doing it, but what about Lindholm? She shivered slightly at the unpleasant thought. She’d wanted to do something unpleasant to the man, but not to kill him.

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  “Hmm.” Loga stared at her for a few seconds before answering. “I strongly suspect he was. That or suicide. However, neither of those are something that we want to spread among the men. We will be conducting additional checks for possible vampires in the fort, I expect you could help with that, you’re more sensitive than most to magic, and making some quiet investigations. However, beyond that, there’s not much we can do.”

  “I would be happy to help.” Ester’s mind raced, what might have happened? She could see why they wouldn’t want people to know if they couldn’t find a culprit. “You said there weren’t any witnesses. Was there anyone else nearby? Surely he didn’t go out onto the walls by himself?”

  “Yes, naturally there were other soldiers there.” Loga thought for a second. “A few men from Lovas’ company. Good ones,” he lowered his voice even more, “for garrison troops anyway. Actually, you know one of them, a Cantrist-Sergeant.”

  “Vegard.” Ester regretted saying the name almost as soon as it left her lips.

  “Yes, that’s right. The one you fought the infiltrators with.”

  She watched for any sign of a smirk or anything like that, but if Loga had any ideas about her and Vegard, he didn’t show it.

  “Ah, well. He did not see anything?”

  “No, he said Captain Lovas was carrying out an inspection and must have fallen, or jumped, while he was between squads.”

  “And the rest of the soldiers agreed?” Ester did her best to keep her voice bland.

  “Yes, why?”

  “I was just curious, the idea that we might have someone or something picking us off from the inside is frightening.”

  “Mmm.” Ester’s heart missed a beat as Loga gave her a searching look. “I’m not convinced there’s much that frightens you, Mage Mazar. Still, if there is anything, we’ll find it. I’d better be going.”

  He gave Ester a brief smile and stood, leaving her trying to work out how to explain that she was terrified half the time without admitting that she was ever scared of anything.

  =====

  That evening, Ester made her way back to Lindholm’s rooms. This time the guard on the door waved her through without any hesitation and once again she found herself in the messy space.

  Lindholm was sat at her desk, hunched over something. As Ester opened her mouth to announce her presence, the Arcanist-Colonel held a hand up for her to stay silent.

  She muttered something, magic swirling around her as she did and then straightened up and twisted to look at Ester.

  “Mazar, thank you for coming. Come here, I have something to show you.”

  Was this what Lindholm had been going to teach her? Even if it was just Schemas, Ester couldn’t help feeling a little burst of eager curiosity as she walked over to Lindholm and peered past her shoulder. The Arcanist-colonel had what looked like a thin gold bracelet laid on the desk in front of her, runes carved halfway around it.

  “A Schema?”

  “Indeed. Wear this and the lesser undead will struggle to see you.” The woman sounded vaguely smug. “Extremely useful for infiltration, but unfortunately limited in its application. It will not work on human eyes and if you make too much of a show of yourself then even a walker will see through it and once the effect is broken it will be useless until you can escape their sight.”

  Ester’s eyes widened and she unconsciously leaned forwards slightly. It wouldn’t be much use in a fight, but if you were trying to sneak past the undead… If she could learn how to make that, she could bring the knowledge back to the Empire. Surely that wasn’t a secret the Republic would mind sharing? Especially if it was useless against the living. Assuming the Empire didn’t already know how to make something like that. She wouldn’t even know where to start though.

  “Are you going to teach me how to make that?” She just managed not to say please.

  A grating chuckle escaped Lindholm’s throat. “I could. I would not even mind, but I do not think this is the best one for you.”

  “What? Why?” Was Lindholm just mocking her?

  “The complexity of the arrays and precision required is beyond you.”

  Ester felt her forehead furrowing. “How do you know? I am better than—”

  Lindholm held up a hand. “Yes, Mazar, Ester.” Her tone softened slightly. “You are better than any of the Arcanists here. I do not like that, but it is true. That does not change things though. This is beyond your abilities to do perfectly, especially not with only a few nights’ practice. If you make the slightest mistake with this Schema it will be useless. It is not like, say… that improvised shield Schema you like to carry around where imprecision just weakens it. Failure will be absolute.”

  “Oh.” Ester slumped, just a little. After Lindholm’s admittance that she was better than the Arcanists, it was hard to be quite so outraged. “Then why are you showing it to me?”

  “Come now, Ester. You are cleverer than that. You will need one of these for the mission, so it makes sense to tell you about it. However, these I will make myself. What I want to enlist you for is somewhat simpler, although still beyond anyone else here I suspect.”

  “What do you want me to do then?”

  Rather than reply, Lindholm opened a drawer in her desk and pulled out a small handful of odd items and handed one of them to her.

  Ester turned it over in her hand as she examined it. A leather strap attached to some kind of metal frame, with glass lenses in the middle of it. She looked up at Lindholm and then back down at the item, her breath quickening. The metal was inlaid with silver, just small bands of it, but that told her a fair bit by itself. Rather than ask Lindholm she looked more closely.

  As she’d expected, tiny runes were embedded in the silver bands. They were almost too small to read, but not quite. Small enough that only someone truly skilled could have made them. She turned the goggles over in her hands as she traced the runes down the frame, all leading to the glass. She had an idea of how they came together, but they were incomplete as they were.

  Pursing her lips, Ester held the goggles up and willed light into being behind them. A spark of excitement ran through her. It was only possible to see with the light, but runes were very faintly etched into the glass. She wasn’t sure how it was done, but she’d have bet her life they combined with the ones on the frame to finish the Schema.

  Without realising her lips were moving, she went through the Schema’s components in her head. She wasn’t sure how long it took before she thought she had it, but when she looked up, Lindholm was sitting there looking steadily at her as if it had only been a few seconds.

  “Well?” There was a hint of amusement in Lindholm’s voice.

  “I have not seen anything quite like it before, but I think it would allow you to see in the dark.” Ester was about to start explaining her reasoning, as if she was in front of one of the Academy’s professors, but Lindholm waved it away with a casual gesture.

  “Exactly. I call it a dark-eye Schema. Come, pull up a chair and sit with me.”

  She barely waited for Ester to get settled before she launched straight into an explanation.

  “I do not need you to understand every aspect of this, simply to copy, but you will need to see how some of this goes together if you are going to be able to make a useful copy. Now, look here. The frame provides for four arrays which work together to minimise interference and are each focused around a different baseline rune. The key to it is the array on the lens that acts as the centre of it all and unites the separate strands.”

  Ester blinked and leaned forward as Lindholm rapidly went through an explanation, pointing out runes almost as fast as Ester could process them, with occasional comments on their positioning relative to each other.

  It felt like hours, but was probably no more than thirty minutes before Lindholm stopped talking. Ester’s head was spinning as she tried to take in everything the Arcanist-Colonel had said. It made sense, in a way. She wasn’t sure she fully understood it, but she could probably copy the example in her hands, slowly.

  Ester looked up to find Lindholm looking straight at her, an odd look in her eyes.

  “Do you think you could replicate that? It does not need to be perfect, unlike the other Schema. Merely good enough.”

  Ester hesitated, was she sure? She didn’t want to embarrass herself in front of Lindholm, but the challenge was calling to her. If she could copy it a few times then she was sure she’d be able to make her own in the future, if she had to.

  “Yes, Arcanist-Colonel. I think I can, except for one thing. How do you get the runes onto the glass without ruining it?”

  Lindholm huffed, opened another drawer and pulled out a bottle.

  “I do not know what they teach the youths at your Academy. Glass can be tricky, but I would expect it to be within your abilities.” She launched into a worryingly technical explanation of how to shape the magic that left Ester struggling to keep up.

  “I… I think I understand, Arcanist-Colonel.” Ester felt about as confident as she sounded, but she wasn’t going to back down from the challenge.

  “Excellent, I expected nothing less.” A subtle tendril of magic pulled the cork from Lindholm’s bottle and she took a swig. “Also, call me Sigrid. You are probably going to die with me, you might as well drop the titles.” She held the bottle out to Ester.

  “Ah, no thank you, Arc— Sigrid.” Ester shook her head. There was a strange feeling in her belly. “Are you… are you sure you should be drinking if you are making a harder Schema?” She bit her bottom lip, half expecting an explosion at the gentle criticism.

  Instead Lindholm just held the bottle up for a look and then shrugged.

  “Probably not. I am still going to though. Now, you had better get to work. We do not have long before the Schemas are needed.”

  Ester shifted herself so that she was at the desk too and picked up one of the blank frames. Great Spirits, she was going to die. Relying on a half-baked Schema that she had no real idea how to make and another made by a drunken Republican mad woman. Was this what adventures were really like?

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  Stubbing warning

  Dramatis personae:

  Ester Mazar - Chartered Mage, seeing in the dark is all very well, but how can I make it explode?

  Edvin Loga - Arcanist-Captain in the 13th Strike Regiment, to be honest, once I worked out you didn't kill Lovas I had more important things to do than investigate properly.

  Sigrid Lindholm - Arcanist-Colonel and war hero, at least there's somebody here who can make a half-decent Schema.