“It makes perfect sense!” Tolinar announced, rushing into Shaloon’s rooms at the Central Talon, chicken feathers trailing from his robes. Oblivious to her glare, he swept the maps and blueprints off her table with such force that they fluttered into the air before drifting lazily to the floor like leaves in autumn.
In the middle of the table, he placed a black globe the size of his head, light seeping from the seam around the base of a pedestal preventing it from rolling. “You have to imagine that this is in reverse mind you, I couldn’t create a model that…”
“Tolinar,” Shaloon leaned on her table, continuing to glare at her new counterpart, “If this doesn’t help with our current endeavor, then…”
“This is so much more important than that, though!” the Warlock shouted, his enthusiasm not diminished in the slightest by Shaloon’s annoyance. “Now, we thought they were dead, but-”
“They are dead.” Shaloon interrupted. Or they were. She didn’t know anymore, but, “This is an aside, we have a job to do.”
But Tolinar continued through the interruption, lost in his own world of theories and explanations, “-if they were brought back by their father, made anew, then it would stand to reason that he would create them in the outer planes, but then how would they influence the material world?”
Shaloon dropped heavily into her chair, resting her elbows on the table and rubbing her eyes. How she missed Morndancer… He'd had his own obsessions, but at least he would leave her out of them and let her work on what mattered…
Tolinar continued, waving his hands excitedly in the air, “They would need a tie to the material plane to ascend into the heavenly plane. Or would it be descend... is there a term for going sideways? Transcend?" he devolved into mumbles until Shaloon cleared her throat pointedly.
Tolinar's head shot back up, and he continued as if he hadn't been distracted at all, "We gave them that! We did!” he jammed his finger into the globe, breaking a hole in the light-blocking darkness and letting loose a beam that glowed on her wall like a spotlight. Giggling madly, he poked four more holes.
“Enough!” Shaloon shouted, cutting the man’s giggles short. She stood again, glaring daggers at him, “It doesn’t matter how.”
“But-”
“Even if you are correct, Tolinar, if we lose the wyrms,” she stuck her finger into one of the holes, blocking its light. “Then none of this matters.” she jerked her hand, flinging the globe off the table to smash into the wall.
“It's been a year since we lost the Firewyrm. Just this summer, an earthquake split Stiudal, creating a new canyon. We are the only ones capable, or even trying, to stop such catastrophes, and to do that, we need the wyrms. Now. Focus!” she snapped her fingers in front of his face to pull his attention away from his destroyed model, “She is still in Clearhelm, still in Tarorn. Now, do you have the information I requested or not?”
“I… yes, yes. We can retrieve her on the eleventh of Gin.” Tolinar’s eyes shifted back to his globe, but Shaloon didn’t care. She smiled.
Soon. They would have Her back soon. They were nearly out of ancient red and gold samples, but with the Firewyrm back in their care, they would have unlimited resources to continue their work. “Perhaps…” Shaloon tried to sound kindly, “once she is back, we can poke more holes and prove your theory,”
Tolinar beamed like a child.
***
Winter 4987, 11 Ginmoth
Lily sat on her bed and looked out the window down to the frost-covered streets below. She sighed, pulling her knees closer to her chest as a variety of people entered and exited the Guild doors below. She wasn’t even sure if she really wanted to go out, or if the fact that she wasn’t allowed made her want to run down the streets in pure spite.
Someone knocked on her door, and she ignored it, her eyes glued out the window. They knocked again, then slid the door open just a crack. She still didn’t look at them.
“May I come in?” Han called. Lily didn’t answer. “I’m going to take your lack of a ‘no’ for a ‘yes’...” he waited a few moments longer, but when Lily continued not to answer, he slipped in and closed the door behind him. “It’s only for a week. Do you plan on moping the entire time?”
Lily snorted. Han snickered, taking a seat at her desk, “You knew you were breaking curfew. As your first infraction, they probably would've stopped at the lecture.” Lily glanced over, sensing another such lecture coming. Han shook his head, his dirty blond ponytail flopping back and forth over his shoulders, “But no, you had to argue with them, and now you're grounded.”
“The curfew is stupid,” Lily snarled. She couldn’t help herself, “It almost, ALMOST, made sense in the summertime, when the sun was still up and it was only starting to get dark when I needed to be back. But now I’m allowed out in the pitch dark of six but still have to be back by seven?”
“It's the rules.” Han shrugged.
“It’s stupid! They should at least be able to give me a reason, but they can’t, and they can’t because there isn’t one.” she looked out the window again, not wanting to look at Han, who was shaking his head again, “They only noticed I was late because Ranito was looking for more samples…”
“He thinks he’s close to a breakthrough-”
“He always thinks he’s close to a breakthrough…” Lily grumbled, continuing under her breath, “It's just like my tower… the Mages here won’t be happy until I’m drained dry and compliant in my room.”
Apparently, she hadn’t been quite enough because Han said, “You know that isn’t true-”
“Isn’t it, though?” Lily looked back to him, stopping his protest in his throat, “I’m asked daily to give more samples, hair, scales, spit, and blood. I can only go out as long as they approve and know where I am, and if I step just a little out of line, they snap their fingers,” Lily snapped, “and lock me in my room. All the while telling me I’m free! A free citizen that can do everything else a citizen can do.”
Han sighed and moved from her chair to her bed, “You are free, but you’re also underage and a ward of the Guild, and as long as you're under their care, you have to obey their rules.”
“Well,” Han stood, straightening his robes and heading to the door, obviously frustrated with her attitude, “Once you earn enough money, you can get an apartment of your own and make your own rules. Until then…” he reached the door and opened it, looking over his shoulder to continue, “You have to live with the consequences of breaking the rules where you live. Stupid or not.”
He left, and Lily continued to watch the city as the sun set and lights flickered to life in nearby windows.
She had thought things would be different after she got her clearance, and for a while, it had been. She'd made friends in the city and got a job making enough money to buy an entire wardrobe and even some jewelry. She'd eaten out more often than in and practiced her staff and tumbles every single day, had even done a few actual performances with the Tomar family.
She'd memorized the city's layout and now knew it better than even Han or Vevi, who'd lived here for years. She was already bored with exploring when Ren and Ron had invited her out for an evening on the town. But that had brought her home after curfew. Then it all spiraled yet again, reminding her who she really belonged to.
With only a word, the Archmage had confined Lily not only to the tower but to her room, for the entire week, all because she dared to demand an answer for the curfew. It was just like when she'd gotten too close to the border around her old tower. The comparison was only made worse when the very next day, they agreed to let her out but only so she could give samples to Ranito, who swore he was close to isolating her genome. Whatever that meant.
And now it was nearly Winter Solstice again with no news on whether or not they would let her go see the boys as promised the previous year...
“This isn’t freedom…” Lily whispered to herself, “It's just a bigger tower with better gilding..."
***
Shaloon watched the dark tower until the last light flickered and died in its many windows. It had taken almost as long as she'd expected. Mages had a tendency to stay up late into the night and wake up late in the afternoon. Beside her, Tolinar adjusted his goggles, sliding down a blue lens and lifting a green on the right eye. “Well?” she asked impatiently.
“Their defenses are intact but limited to the doors. As long as we avoid using magic from the outer planes or illusions within ten feet outside and three inside, we can avoid triggering them,” he answered, somehow sounding almost sane. "Other than that, only the upper floors are spelled to detect outer planes magic." making sure none of the resident apprentices decided to dabble in the dangerous magic in their rooms...
Shaloon looked down at her robes and smiled. The Guild had grown fat and lazy after centuries or more of safety, “And the atrium?” she asked.
Tolinar shifted his goggles again, lowering a red lens on his left eye and shifting up a purple, “Only the receptionist," a transfer, unfamiliar with the residents yet. As Tolinar's information indicated.
Perfect. Shaloon readied her papers, squeezing the middle to confirm its contents again. She and Tolinar stepped into the street and towards the Guild steps, walking with confidence in their mundane disguise as normal Guild Mages.
The doors didn’t creak as they opened, but they did slide with a hiss loud enough to wake the receptionist beside them. The young woman startled awake then blinked stupidly at the two Mages before squinting at the roof of the massive atrium. Gauging the time by the position of the stars enchanted in the ceiling.
Usually, the Guild would be closed to the public by now, but Shaloon and Tolinar could easily be mistaken for resident Mages, home after a long night on the town. Playing to this, Tolinar rubbed the back of his neck and blushed while Shaloon handed her papers to the receptionist, “Sorry, we would appreciate it if you didn’t report us right away… we uh… fell asleep.”
The receptionist blushed at her own slip-up on duty, “They don’t usually check the logs unless they have to.” she assured them in a conspiratorial whisper, taking Shaloon’s papers. With one hand, she held a quill to log the Mages entering the guild, and with the other, she opened the papers. A puff of dust exploded from the pages, engulfing the receptionist's face. She didn’t even have time to call out before her head hit the table, her hands going limp as she started to snore.
Shaloon closed her papers and slipped them back into her pocket while Tolinar chanted over the receptionist's head, spreading his fingers over the back of her skull, then bringing them together and pulling them into the air, taking with them a sliver of silver light. Her memory of the last few minutes. Such a spell only worked if the memory wasn’t fully implanted in the mind, so Shaloon and Tolinar could only hope they'd taken enough of it not to raise suspicions.
It won’t matter… Shaloon told herself, once we have the Firewyrm, they won’t be able to find us even with this foolish girl's help… They crept anyway. Taking the stairs that spiraled around the outside of the atrium towards the private rooms and offices located further up the tower.
Shaloon had lived in a tower like this once... trained... What had changed? When-
Tolinar slipped his goggles back on and gave a nod of assurance as they reached the top flight. Shaloon continued on, and the two slipped into the living quarters with none the wiser.
“There,” Tolinar pointed, “Third level, fifth door in…”
“You’re sure?” Shaloon asked in a hiss even as she followed his instructions up the first flight of stairs.
“Yes, that's the Firewyrm's room.” he assured her, “Do you have the item?”
In answer, Shaloon removed a simple lead box from her robes. It held an anti-magic field that would deprive the Firewyrm of her magic but also them of theirs. -Such spells were almost universally cast in boxes such as this, which could be opened and closed as needed. Only the most powerful Archmages could cast one in an area, and in that case, it had a time limit.
As if to reassure herself, Shaloon also patted the sword tucked into her robes. Most other Mages or Warlocks would be just as helpless as a Sorcerer in an antimagic field. But she was well trained in the blade, even without her black sword.
They reached the third floor, and Tolinar tried the handle while Shaloon fingered the leaden lid, ready to open it right away. “It isn’t locked…” Tolinar whispered curiously, twisting the handle and pushing the door open.
“Fools…” Shaloon spoke in draconic and stepped into the Firewyrm's room with a smile, “Time to come home…”
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