Guild Mage: Apprentice

31. The Waystone

When Liv had pictured a waystone in her mind, she’d imagined a sort of empty doorframe, made of mana-stone, standing out in the middle of nowhere. It would probably be carved with obscure Vædic sigils, the sort of thing scholars at Coral Bay had been studying for years in a fruitless effort to build new portals.

She’d never imagined just how big they were.

"That entire thing is the waystone?" Liv asked, again. They’d left the road up to the mine, and the carriage had turned off onto a rougher, more overgrown trail that led down toward the Aspen River. In fact, a section had been washed out by some past flood, and a bridge of timbers erected to bridge the gap. At the end of the trail, on a bluff overlooking the river, half a dozen wagons were crammed up against each other atop an enormous stretch of stone. If Liv had to guess, she would say it was at least fifty feet across.

"The old gods built waystones to transport goods, as well as travellers," Master Grenfell explained, leading her over to where the edge of the waystone gave way to moss. It was clear at a glance that much of the stone had only been cleared recently, and Liv guessed it had been done just for this expedition - probably when the Eld came down to help with the harvest.

"I was picturing a sort of door that you walked through," Liv admitted.

"Oh no," Master Reimis broke in, walking over from where he’d been seeing to the wagons. The teams of horses shuffled, flicking their tails to keep the flies away, while they waited. "They had things like that, of course; personal waystones to move from their homes to places like Godsgrave. But most of those were destroyed, or lost in the depths of a rift. What remains are waystones that existed to move goods. Aluthet’Staia from here, for instance. And there’s no good moving only as much stone as man on foot can carry through a door in his two hands. Here, come take a look, Livara."

Together, the four of them crouched down at the edge of the waystone, even Lady Julianne. "I expected it would be mana-stone, and there would be sigils," Liv said, shifting her staff into her left hand. "I’m glad that I got that right, at least."

"Master Norris actually has a theory that the stones are layered," Grenfell explained. "With entire networks of sigils on each layer. He believes there are just too many enchantments, all designed to interact with each other in complex ways, for what we see on the surface. Of course, there’s no way to know without breaking one of the waystones apart into pieces, and no one is going to do that."

"I suspect even making the attempt would be dangerous," Reimis added. "Look here, along the border, Livara. This is where the destinations are listed - in Vædic, of course. Do you see one that you recognize?"

Liv shook her head. "Master Grenfell hasn’t begun teaching me sigils, yet," she admitted.

"Then let me point a few out. Over here," Master Reimis said, rising to his feet and moving clockwise around the rim of the waystone, "is the inscription for Al’Fenthia - High Pass, in the Vædic tongue." Liv followed him around; though the Elden merchant only pointed a few sets of sigils out to her by name, picked out in gleaming silver, she saw dozens. "This is Coral Bay, here," he said. "One to remember, for when you’re ready to travel there. I would show you the sigils for Bald Peak, but no waystone carries the inscriptions for itself."

"The inscriptions are a fascinating subject for study, in and of themselves," Master Grenfell mused, trailing after them. "The names of particular locations are often slightly different - or we have dropped pieces, in the intervening years. Sometimes the information is obvious enough: Coral Bay Fishery, for instance. They still farm scallops and oysters there."

"Sometimes parts are entirely untranslatable. Bald Peak Power- something," Julianne remarked. "I don’t understand that one. Your home is listed as ’High Pass Crop Breeding, though again, the last piece I can’t catch. But it is like a window into another world, long in the past."

"So how does it work?" Liv asked. "Obviously you want this one." She nudged the butt of her staff against the inscriptions that marked the trading city of Al’Fenthia. "Mayor Cooper said this stone was broken, but I know Master Jurian used it to get here from Coral Bay."

"It isn’t broken," Master Reimis said. "It simply isn’t powered. Though even that is only partly true; this waystone absorbed quite a bit of mana from the recent eruption. We were able to use that to send the first group of wagons, three days ago."

"If the shoal were just a bit larger," Master Grenfell explained, "the stone would likely charge itself. We believe one of the enchantments in the lower layers is designed to draw in ambient mana."

"Without a shoal, however, it takes a substantial amount of magical power to activate," Reimis continued. "Most human mages can’t do it alone."

"But Eld can hold more mana, can’t they?" Liv said. She hoped no one noticed the hesitation; she’d almost said ’we,’ instead, and caught herself at the last moment.

"On average," Reimis agreed. "The other complication is that the amount of mana needed is based on the size of the stone, not the number of people or wagons you’re sending. When the waystone activates, everything standing here will go. It gives us an incentive to use the stones for large groups, rather than just a person or two."

"How much mana does this stone require?" Liv asked.

"Twenty rings," Master Grenfell answered. Liv blinked; that was not only more than he could handle, it was more than she could, as well. Together, however, they could make it happen. But it also put into perspective how much more powerful Master Jurian was.

"Can more than one person help?" she asked. As long as she had them here willing to explain, Liv wanted to learn as much as she could.

"Worth it, to ensure that you actually capture your target," Grenfell told her. "I feel like Jurian’s words are coming out of my mouth."

"He does a lot of fighting, I take it?" Liv asked. "I think I’ll call this ’Grasping Ice."

"As good a name as any," the master mage told her. "Be sure to record it properly in your book when we get back to the castle. Master Jurian and his team were one of the first groups to cull the wild rifts in Varuna," he explained. "It made them rather famous, and not a little wealthy. He even brought a word back to the guild, found in one of those ancient ruins. Of course, it didn’t help them in the end."

"What do you mean?" Liv asked.

"I mean they were fool enough to go into the shoals of Godsgrave," Master Grenfell explained. "I don’t know the whole story, but most of them died there. Only two came out alive - Jurian, and his betrothed."

"Master Jurian is married?" Liv asked.

"No." Grenfell shook his head. "She called it off, after that fiasco. Went to serve as court mage for the king. The whole thing was a mess, enough that I heard about it all the way out here."

Liv bit her lip, trying to imagine the strong, confident mage who’d saved her from Mayor Cooper and the guilds losing a fight. Not only losing a fight, but losing people who must have been his friends, and then being abandoned by the woman who should have been his wife. She couldn’t make the knowledge fit the man she’d met, so she changed the subject.

"Do you know the word for sword?" she asked.

"Eager to follow in your aunt’s footsteps, are you?" Grenfell asked her, with a smile. "Has it escaped your notice that, just like Jurian’s team, she died at the bottom of a rift?"

"I saw you all when you came back from Bald Peak," Liv said. "I know it’s dangerous. But it was dangerous to be left behind, too. And if no one went, all those monsters would spill out, wouldn’t they?"

"They would," Grenfell said. "I just want you to understand, that it is much safer to find a place as a court mage to a decent noble, and spend your time teaching children, than it is to go wandering around the western continent like he did. At Whitehill, I only need to go on a culling team every twenty years or so, when Bald Peak erupts."

"I’m not saying I enjoyed fighting those bats," Liv said. "But if I hadn’t known how, I’d be dead now - and so would Lady Julianne, Sophia, and baby Matthew. Learning the right spells kept us all alive."

"True enough," the older mage admitted. "You want sek. Observe." Grenfell held out his right hand, fingers open. "Aluthet’he Sekis." A shining blade of mana, shedding blue and gold wisps of power, extended from his palm. The moment it solidified, Master Grenfell closed his fingers about the hilt, grasping it, and then made a cut through the air.

"Not a spell I use often," he admitted. "Like a shield of raw mana, this construct continues to draw from me the longer I use it. That is why I generally find it more efficient to fling shards at a distance - as well as the fact that I am no swordsman, and have no business fighting up close in someone’s face. It does have a few advantages, however, and perhaps more for you than for me."

"Like what?" Liv asked.

"For one thing, maintaining the blade doesn’t require me to talk," Grenfell pointed out, whipping it around and then bringing the tip to a halt just in front of Liv’s chest. "That’s often a handy thing. It can be used for defense, as well as offense, if you are trained in swordplay. It’s also a rather contained display of power: notice I’m not shattering the ground or blowing apart doors."

Liv took a step back. "And I wouldn’t have to maintain it, would I?" she guessed. "Celet’he Sekis." Just like her teacher had done, she extended her right hand, leaving her staff in the left, and opened her fingers. A moment later, a sword of ice rested in her palm. Rather than grasp it, however, Liv yelped and let the weapon drop. It shattered into frozen chunks on the parapet.

"That’s colder than I thought it would be," Liv complained. "How did she do it? And how did she use five of them?"

Grenfell chuckled. "It actually relieves me, somewhat, to see that you don’t get every spell perfect the first time," he admitted. "That word comes so naturally to you that it is astonishing, Liv. But some things simply require experimentation - trial and error. I would suggest that perhaps you should commission a good set of gloves. With the nature of your magic, I think you will find them convenient on more than one occasion. Do you really want to learn to use a sword? Shall we add fencing lessons to your schedule?"

"I don’t know," Liv said, after a moment. "Probably not. I’m too small; even if I had a magical sword, I can’t see it preventing any of the guards from beating me into the ground. Let’s stick to things I can actually be good at."

"Come on," Master Grenfell said. "They’ll be serving the evening meal."

"I still want to know how she did it, though," Liv grumbled, following him down the stairs.