Chapter 46: The Collector

  We had not even made it to the treeline when the bells started ringing.

  A rhythmic crystalline chiming rang, perfectly spaced and annoyingly pleasant. It echoed through the valley demanding attention not with volume, but with authority.

  "Hide" Elder Oren hissed, his face draining of what little color it had left. He shoved the little girl, Elara, behind a rain barrel. "It is the Auditor. The Magisters."

  I grabbed Vrex’s arm pulling him into the shadow of the newly repaired cottage. I adjusted my Veil. I didn't set it to "Insignificant." I set it to "Static Object". I wanted to register as a lamp post or a bench.

  A procession floated down the main road.

  It didn't touch the mud. A palanquin made of white porcelain and gold filigree hovered three feet off the ground. It was supported by four Bound Elementals, creatures of pure, crackling air that looked like transparent genies in chains. They strained under the weight, their forms flickering with the effort.

  Sitting on the palanquin was a man who looked bored.

  He was scrolling through a holographic slate floating in front of his face looking like a commuter checking emails on a train.

  He wore robes of iridescent silk that shifted color with the light. His skin was flawless, glowing with the healthy rosy hue of someone who had never skipped a meal of pure mana.

  [Entity: Magister Solas]

  [Magnitude: Unstable]

  [Class: Manifest]

  [Density: Vibrant]

  The palanquin stopped in front of the Obelisks. Solas did not need to stand up. He simply tapped the black marble of the machine with a wand made of polished driftwood.

  A smoky projection appeared, a bar graph made of light. It hovered at 82%.

  Solas sighed. He rubbed the bridge of his nose as if the missing 18% was a personal inconvenience.

  "Elder Oren," he called out not even looking at the old man. "We discussed the variance last month. The efficiency of this sector is dropping below the standard deviation."

  Oren stepped forward bowing low, leaning heavily on his staff. "Magister... the land is dry. The deep currents shifted. We have drained ourselves to fill it this far."

  Solas finally looked down. His eyes were a pale watery blue, devoid of malice but utterly lacking in empathy. He looked at Oren like a mechanic looking at a broken toaster.

  "I understand the logistics Elder," Solas said, his voice smooth and reasonable. "But the Wards run on a fixed consumption rate. They do not care about your 'shifted currents'. If I input 82% fuel, I get 82% coverage."

  He gestured vaguely at the shimmering dome above.

  "The logic is absolute. I must shrink the perimeter. The outlying farms and the families within them will be designated as 'Wilderness Zones' effective immediately."

  "You can't" Oren begged, his voice trembling. "The Rune-Wolves are massing. If you shrink the Ward, the millers... the Tanners... they will be eaten tonight."

  "Then they should move inside the new perimeter," Solas said making a note on his slate. "Though, overcrowding will lead to sanitation issues. It is a difficult calculus."

  He wasn't enjoying this. He was just doing the math. And in his math people were numbers that could be rounded down.

  "There is... an alternative," Solas said pausing. "To balance the ledger."

  He scanned the village. His gaze appraising.

  His eyes landed on the rain barrel. On the small terrified face peeking out.

  "Ah" Solas said. "Untapped potential."

  He gestured with a hand. A gentle breeze, precise and firm, lifted Elara from her hiding spot. It simply carried her through the air until she hovered before the palanquin.

  "The girl has the Spark," Solas noted, his wand tracing the air around her. "Raw. Unrefined. But high density. She is wasting her potential in this mud."

  "She is a child!" Oren cried stepping forward.

  "She is an asset," Solas corrected gently. "The Guild is always looking for... biological capacitors. I can take her to the Spire. She will be fed. She will be housed. And her natural output will cover your deficit for three months."

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  "You mean you'll drain her" I whispered to Vrex.

  "He means he will put her in a gilded cage and siphon her life until she is a husk," Vrex rumbled his stone fists clenching. "He speaks of slavery as if it were a scholarship."

  Solas looked at Oren. "It is a generous offer, Elder. The safety of the village for the service of one child. The logic is sound."

  Oren raised his staff, a pathetic, defiant gesture. "No."

  Solas looked disappointed. "Non-compliance is a breach of contract."

  He flicked a finger. The four Air-Elementals carrying his chair released their hold. They did not vanish; they expanded, turning into four swirling vortexes of pressurized wind.

  "Pacify the area" Solas ordered. "Secure the asset."

  One of the vortexes shot toward Oren.

  THOOM.

  It hit a wall of granite.

  Vrex had moved. He stepped between the Elder and the wind planting his feet. The vortex slammed into him, a force that could strip bark from trees.

  Vrex didn't budge. The Mantle of the Stubborn Earth flared on his shoulder. The wind shrieked as it hit his Dictum scattering around him harmlessly.

  "I do not recognize your contract," Vrex growled, his voice drowning out the wind.

  Solas blinked. He looked at the two-ton gargoyle standing in the mud. "A geo-construct? Here? You are unauthorized heavy machinery."

  He pointed his wand at Vrex. "Deactivate."

  A pulse of magic washed over Vrex. Probably a spell designed to override the logic cores of golems.

  Vrex tilted his head making a face.

  He grabbed the nearest Air-Elemental. He grounded it. He shoved his hand into the swirling air and slammed it into the earth. The elemental shrieked as its charge was discharged into the soil dissipating instantly.

  "He's immune to Command," I realized my heart hammering. "Because he has his own will. Solas doesn't know how to fight a construct that thinks."

  But there were still three elementals. And Solas was raising his wand, the tip glowing with a dangerous blue light. He wasn't bored anymore. He was annoyed.

  "Vagrants," Solas sighed. "Disrupting the flow. Very well. Erosion protocols."

  I moved.

  I flowed across the square running around the pressure wave he was building.

  Solas saw me. He tracked me. He was a Magister; his reaction time was honed by academy duels. He shifted his aim leading the target.

  But he was aiming for a person. He was aiming for a soul that resonated with the world.

  I dropped the Veil. I did not replace it with another. I just let it fall.

  For a second I was nothing. A hole in his targeting array.

  I slid under the levitating palanquin and vaulted up the side.

  Solas flinched. He wasn't used to people being this close. He was used to dueling at thirty paces with polite bows.

  I grabbed his wrist. His skin was soft, manicured and warm.

  "Un-hand me!" Solas gasped trying to pull away. "My personal wards will incinerate—"

  "Your wards are looking for a spell," I hissed my face inches from his. "They're looking for Fire or Ice or Void."

  I tightened my grip. I could feel the hum of his power; refined, filtered.

  "But I'm not a spell" I whispered.

  I triggered The Prismatic Weave.

  Usually, I used it to sip energy. To taste the air. But Vrex had taught me that a tool is defined by how you use it.

  "You like the flow?" I asked, my voice trembling with the strain. "You like moving energy around? Here. Have some of mine."

  I shared with him.

  I took 5 Lumen from my internal reserve. Not filtered through a spell. Not shaped into a Kinetic push. Just raw chaotic unaligned Starlight.

  I shoved it into his circuits. It was like pouring rocket fuel into a steam engine.

  Solas’s eyes went wide. His mouth opened in a silent scream. The veins in his neck bulged turning a vibrant terrifying violet.

  "Too... much!" he wheezed. "It's... its not aligned!"

  His body tried to process it. The Astrolabe could handle raw Starlight; his soul couldn't. It was too dense. It was too heavy.

  The energy traveled down his arm and into the wand. The sapphire cap designed to channel elegant mathematical flows of mana shook violently.

  Crack.

  "No" Solas whimpered. "That's... expensive..."

  BOOM.

  The wand shattered. The sapphire turned to dust. A shockwave of pure rejected energy blasted outward.

  Solas was thrown backward tumbling off his palanquin and landing hard in the mud.

  I stood on the floating platform swaying slightly as the Constant Edict kept me upright against the blast.

  The remaining elementals flickered and vanished their binding anchors severed by the feedback loop.

  Solas lay in the dirt. His fine robes were stained. His hand was shaking. He looked up at me and for the first time, I saw something human in his eyes. Not fear of death but fear of the inexplicable.

  "You..." he stammered cradling his hand. "You aren't a wizard. You possess no aptitude. You are just... noise."

  "Yeah," I said jumping down from the palanquin. "I'm the static on the line. And you just got disconnected."

  I stepped toward him.

  Solas scrambled backward, his heels digging into the dust. "The Spire... the Spire will note this aggression! The paperwork alone will bury you!"

  "File it" I said, my voice flat. "Tell them the audit is paused due to technical difficulties. Tell them the village is under new management."

  I pointed to the horizon. "Go."

  Solas didn't argue. He scrambled onto his damaged palanquin, the levitation enchantment whining in protest as it wobbled into the air. He did not look back. He sped away toward the distant city, a trail of sparks falling from his broken console.

  Silence returned to Grey-Water.

  I stood there my chest heaving. My Lumen tank was down to 6/11. My hand felt numb, like I’d slapped a brick wall.

  I felt a tug on my coat.

  I looked down. Elara was standing there. She wasn't crying. She was staring at my hand her eyes wide and dark.

  "You feel weird" she whispered.

  "Weird?" I asked crouching down to her level. "Like scary weird?"

  "No," she said reaching out a small dirty finger to poke my knee. "Like... when you rub a balloon on your hair. You feel like fuzzy lightning."

  "Fuzzy lightning. I can live with that."

  Vrex walked over dusting off his hands. "The Magister has retreated. But he is a bureaucrat Kaelen. He will return with Enforcers. Or lawyers. I am not sure which is worse."

  "We bought time," I said looking at Elder Oren, who was staring at the shattered remains of the wand in the dirt. "Two days. Maybe three before the paperwork clears."

  "Three days," Oren whispered. "To do what?"

  "To fix the plumbing" I answered, turning toward the dark forest.