12 Miles Below

“You should gloat.” Cathida whispered in my ear like the proverbial devil on my shoulder. “Seems like the best time to me, deary.”

The clan lord sat at the table reviewing the footage of our fight, while we kneeled before him. Shadowsong and I remained silent, waiting for judgement. Atius had been watching without a word for the past five minutes as he poured over every bit of footage.

“Cathida…” I hissed, “Not right now when the fucking clan lord is in front of us. This is serious.”

“That’s exactly why you should gloat, of course. But fine, ignore my wisdom. Be boring. See where that gets you.” She gave an exasperated groan before going quiet. It was honestly impressive how much her voice conveyed expression. I’d never seen an old wrinkled woman roll her eyes and wave me away as a pest before, but somehow I now had a perfect mental picture of that.

Lord Atius took off his helmet and set it to the side, drawing me back to the present. I presumed he was done watching and was current with events. “Ikusari.” He said slowly, “Every time I’ve told you to trust in me, have I ever broken my word to you?”

The shadowsong prime remained kneeled, staring directly at the ground. “No, my lord. Not once.”

“Then why choose now to break that trust? We discussed this in depth only hours ago.”

Shadowsong remained still, and only spoke once he was sure of his words. “I began to have… paranoid delusions that the Winterscars had somehow fooled you. The recent loss of Tenisent, and then watching my daughter possibly leave on a mission of no return warped my judgement. I say this not as an excuse, only to inform where I went wrong.”

The old deathless shook his head slowly, taking a moment to think. “My word is absolute in this clan. When I made my judgement on who to send, I did so carefully and with measure. I don’t think you properly understand how monumentally foolish this stunt was, and the potential cost it could have to the clan as a whole.” I’ve never seen Atius angry before, though admittedly, I haven’t spent a whole lot of time around the clan lord yet. The weight of disappointment in his voice felt somehow worse than outright anger, and I wasn’t even the target of it. “How did you let your feelings cloud your judgment this badly? Especially now of all times, when the clan’s greatest threat in centuries is breathing down our necks? I needed you here for stability and order. And here I find that you’ve been outside in a blood feud?”

“Tempers flare up, that’s inevitable. I get that. But I expect them to be handled in the ring of swords, like civilized men. Not with Occult blades raised up, and absolutely not outside on the surface. You don’t realize how close you were to costing the clan everything. I charged Keith with a mission, the discovery of which might tip the scales of the entire war. And you nearly killed him. All because you let your biases, old grievances and fear blind you.”

“I understand and will accept any judgement from you, my lord.”

“You certainly deserve judgement, but not by my hand.” Atius turned his gaze to me next. “Keith, as per clan law, I leave remediations to be settled between you and Ikusari. If no settlement can be reached, then return to me and I will handle it.” He gave Shadowsong a withering look. “Though I highly doubt such a thing will come to pass. Ikusari, dismissed. Reflect on your actions, and be prepared to set things right.”

The man gave a quick grunt of acknowledgement before standing tall, turning on his heel and marching away out of the room. The clan lord watched his steps, an old expression of fatigue in his eyes. When the door shut, he turned those eyes back to me.

It was quiet for a moment. Only the sound of a few candles flickering away in the room. “I knew that lad back when he was a boy.” Atius said. “Feels almost like I stepped back a few decades into the past just now, having to discipline him like this again.” He knit his hands together, glancing down at them. “It’s sometimes hard to shift my mind as people grow. One moment, I think of them as a tiny whelp. The next, I realize they’re already thirty five, married and planning to sire a whelp of their own. Blink again, and they’re old and retired. No matter the number of years I’ve gone through, it always comes as a surprise to me and always at the oddest times.” He chuckled, somberly. “And occasionally, they do something so monumentally foolish, I find myself back to thinking of them as a whelp for a few moments. Had a temper back then, that one. It would flare up, end violently with something broken, and leave only shame at himself the moment after he got hold of his senses. I suppose such demons never truly go away, even as an old man. He simply learned how to mask and control it instead.”

He stood, walking over to me. “Do leave him some room for his pride when you make your demands from him. Ultimately, it was a mistake that stemmed from me at the root. I knew I would need to take the chance and give some knights the Winterblossom technique, the situation all but demands it. I only hesitated too long, overthinking.” He sighed, a long drawn out thing, staring at a mural of knights fighting off a twisted splash of white and violet color. No details discernible by the artist’s choice, more bringing out a feeling of chaos being held back by blue colored swings of Occult swords. “How are you faring from all this, lad?”

I lifted my head a bit. “Surprisingly, I feel fine.” I said. And I meant it too. I held off shadowsong for four minutes in a strict one against one, no holds barred fight. Most people don’t even survive for thirty seconds in the ring of swords. If there was ever a mark of my improvement, holding my own against the current greatest duelist in a hundred miles, this would be it. “The moment I correctly got the winterblossom technique working, I knew I was safe from getting killed. The rest was a standard duel.”

“Standard?” Atius chuckled. “Odd definition you have of that.”

“...Fair point, but when has my life ever been anything normal? Guess this is par the course. Too many secrets floating around, something’s bound to blow up.”

The clan lord went quiet at that, staring at the mural. I couldn’t tell which knights were drawn there. Not because the panel resolution was too poor to make out details, the pixels were bright and sharp. No, it was that none of these knights were recognizable to me, with exception for the figure on the left. The greatcloak gave it away.

“Secrets.” Atius said. “Reveal too much and it burns your hand. Too little, and people break rank in unexpected ways, trying to work with an incomplete picture. Four hundred years and it’s still not an exact science to me.”

He turned and walked over to where I knelt, tapping me on my shoulders lightly as he passed. “Stand back up lad, time we had a talk about what you’ve been up to in the shadows. This is as good a time as any.”

I did as bid, rising off my knees and following him deeper into the audience chamber, to a smaller table. There we both took a seat. I took off my helmet, setting it down to the side.

“Word already reached you?” I asked him.

He nodded. “Something like that. Reports noted that you practically vanished for a full week, only appearing like a ghost from the walls to sleep in your room. No one knows where you vanish to. Now you’re back, active again. Whatever experiments you were running in seclusion has either been abandoned, or unraveled. And I know enough about you to toss out the first theory.”

I gave him a grin. “Hit center mass. Finally found out how warlocks forge Occult blades. I can smith as many of those blades as we need now.”

Atius had a pensive expression on his face, almost frozen. Then he sat back, as if taking the news in. “How many people would have given everything just to hear those words, I wonder?” He smiled. “The single most guarded secret in the world, and you’ve uncovered it. Hah! Those warlocks would be fuming if they only knew. You’ve done excellent Keith. Absolutely excellent. You went up against historical odds, and where hundreds failed before, you succeeded.”

There was something deep down inside that bloomed into life in me. A warmth, that I’d finally done something truly impressive for once in my life. Recognition. I basked in it, soaked it in like a sponge.

“The clan owes you a heavy debt. This discovery will directly save the lives of thousands. Ask of me anything you wish, and it will be done.”

“I..” fumbling, a little awkward at the praise, “I don’t need anything.”

He laughed, eyes closed as he rocked back slightly. “Right now, perhaps not! But once you have time to think, you will. Oh, you will.” He said, tapping his head with a finger. “The resources of Clan Altosk are at your disposal. Any idea you wish to pursue, I’ll order entire houses to assist. It doesn’t matter to me how superfluous or eccentric of an idea you have, lad. Even if it ends up being a complete waste of resources. It’ll be done. The price for the winterblossom technique and the secret of forging Occult blades is worth it all. How did those clever little bastards hide their mark anyhow? They’ve fooled the entire world for centuries on end, it must have been something to crack.”

“They put it inside the hilt of course,” I said, “Embedded it right into the center of the metal. Reality doesn’t care if the runes can be spotted by humans or not. A simple difference in chemical composition that we couldn’t possibly see is enough.” I dove into the details, eager to explain the full depth of the work I did.

Atius listened, attention completely focused. I gave him every detail, the whole scope. He’d ask questions occasionally, especially on the soul fractal and my thoughts on why the warlocks hadn’t come up with a counter. I gave him some new information to mull over, as he put it. Kidra had already told him of the Winterblossom technique she’d perfected while I’d been busy tinkering with that knife, so all detail was spent on my discovery.

Atius explained to me his own side of events. “Your sister told me of the technique you’d come up with and the improvements she’d added. I spent a few days on my own attempting to replicate it, and training with her personally.”

“You trained her? She never said a word to me about that. Gods, when did you even find the time?”

Atius grinned at that. “I’ve learned a few tricks over the years. Some tricks I can be very good at. Others, like this technique of yours, elude me.”

“It didn’t work for you?” I asked, curious.

He shook his head. “No. I could move my soul into the fractal, but I felt none of that sense of concept around me like Kidra described.”

We both stopped for a moment, thinking. “Could it have something to do with you being Deathless?”

“That was my first suspicion. I’ve long known I’m a step removed from being human. My soul itself might be different between us, naturally. It’s interesting to learn something new about myself. Novel really.”

“You don’t seem too disappointed at being unable to do the same thing Kidra does.”

He waved a hand off. “I can’t be too greedy now, lad. Besides, increasing my own power isn’t what will help the clan the most. What’s wonderful about this technique is that every knight could potentially use it. That was far more important to me than being able to personally make use of this. The future looks bright.”

When I was done with my tale, I felt lighter. As if I’d taken off a weight on my shoulder. He leaned back, pondering for a moment. Then he gave a light shrug, and turned to me. “I’m wondering what path to take with you next. Elevate you up and have everyone in the clan know that you are the first sorcerer knight? Or keep all this hidden like a dagger that we can shiv our enemies with when they least expect it.”

He brought a hand to his beard, stroking it in thought as he spoke. “The more people know, the larger the chances of leaks. However, surface dwellers aren’t as loosely lipped as the Undersiders or the Othersiders. Duty here is an iron backbone I can rely on, if we give Occult blades to our soldiers and swore them to secrecy, even if we have near a thousand take up arms, the chances of discipline slipping is non-existent. It would take several thousands before the chances that someone slips begin to move up. Our relic knights, now those I have full faith they can keep and hold any secret. The winterblossom technique would be safe in their hands, and they would have the discipline to use it only when needed, fooling their opponents into thinking their speed is average and only occasionally increases at what seems like lucky moments and close calls.”

“It all comes with a balance of good and bad, lad.” He lifted his right hand up, as if holding onto something in the flat of his palm. “On one hand, if I expose you to the whole clan as a sorcerer knight, morale would skyrocket and we could more openly make use of your discoveries without hiding. Anything you discover and create can be used freely in the open. Our knights would all move at full speed from the start, culling their opponents with alacrity unmatched in minutes. However, word will surely reach the other clans, and eventually the undersiders. The warlock whelps will come for us within the next few years. The only reason they haven’t destroyed each other already is due to a fine balancing act between the lot. But if they could, they would take out their competition in a heartbeat. If anything could unite them, it would be a rogue entity like ourselves spilling their secrets. We’d have to negotiate a pact of sorts, or find ourselves in another war.”

His left hand was raised next, as he set down his right. “If we hide your true skills, giving only the minimum to the most trustworthy, we will surely lose some lives over that decision in the immediate term. Our knights would take longer to wear down the enemy ones, as they need to pretend to be regular knights that just so happen to be oddly quick when the metal is put down. Our soldiers will hide their occult blades until the last moment, drawing them out more in an ambush than a full fight. Any inventions of yours with this new discovery will need to be far more controlled and done with precision so that no enemy remains alive to tell the tale.”

“You have a choice in mind?” I asked.

He tilted his head to the side. “I think an exception should be made on who chooses the path. This discovery is yours. I would have you decide how best to use it. If you seek recognition, you will have it. And I will handle the fallout that happens one way or another. Take your time to consider, and then let me know what you pick.”

I stayed silent at that, a little shocked. This wasn’t just a small choice, it would possibly change the future. “Am I in any way qualified to make a decision on this?” I asked.

He grinned. “No. But as I said. This discovery is yours. And I have confidence in the clan and myself that we can navigate what comes next. There’s uncertainty, there’s always uncertainty. We’ve always found a way forward, regardless. Still. If the responsibility is too harsh, letting me decide is a valid choice as well.”

“What would you have picked?” I asked him.

“The math is cold, and I have to be colder for such choices with these stakes. I think you already know which choice I would make.”

He reached into his pocket, armored hands withdrawing a small USB key. “I don’t expect an answer right now. I want you to think on it. About what you want out of life, and the clan.” He said as he placed the key carefully on the table, and slid it over to me. “In this flash drive, are my own secrets that I’ll share with you. These are the pictures I took on my journey through the underground. The fractals on each pillar that grant Deathless their powers. They’re categorized, along with all the spells I have kept and used. I give them to you, in hopes you might discover a method of making use of them yourself. Perhaps you really will become a sorcerer knight and bring a new era to the world. Or it might be a fool’s quest, and end with time wasted. Regardless, I believe it’s worth the chance.”

“Do you think it’s safe though?” I asked, reaching out for the key.

When I wrapped my hand around the small key, his gauntlet clasped mine and held on. “The circumstances force our hands with the Occult. It’s simply too powerful to ignore given the war that’s coming. But I haven’t been sitting on my laurels this past week either. I went searching to find what’s been cleaning up history. I believe I might have found a possible direction, though I need to confirm sources. For the moment, take care to only work with fractals that see general use and the ones in the key.”

I nodded, understanding his message. He let go of my hand and drew back. “Speaking of general use, the warlock guilds, of course, have an entire arsenal of weapons that never leave their hands. By holding onto advantages no one else has, they remain unchallenged. However, I suspect that they never trusted real engineers enough to have them make greater or more creative weapons with their secrets. And why change what already works? They’ve grown complacent. Fat and lazy in their status quo. We have a unique opportunity as you happen to be both an engineer and a budding warlock. An excellent combination. Are you up for a challenge?”

“Always.” I answered, grinning back.

He leaned forward. “Tell me, have you ever heard of the warlock’s occult crossbows? I believe we might do better. For starters.”

Next chapter - The names we carry (T)

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