Chương 298: Kindling

At an hour apiece, the temple can accommodate less than nine-thousand sorcerers per year. While we don't have firm numbers or any way to confirm, it is believed that there are about a hundred thousand sorcerers in the kingdom at any given time, give or take. And you can take as a given that every sorcerer that does not inherit fire naturally from their epiphany is going to want to learn it soon.

The fact that I've been on this waiting list or five years and I'm getting seen, finally, is actually pretty lucky for me. Someone may have pulled strings to get me moved up the queue. Or maybe I just got lucky. Or maybe a lot of other people got unlucky. For various reasons, sorcerers are more likely to die younger, from misadventure, than other types of magicians. I really hope that my wait time was not cut short by other people dying ahead of me. The town was splendid.

Spires shot up into the sky, arching skybridges connected buildings together. The local trees were fancifully shaped, the landscape was artfully sculpted into overlooks, swooping hillsides, scenic streams and quaint, pastoral roadways. Most of the local flora was various topiary shapes, most of the local fauna appeared to be well-tamed pets that relaxed in and around the houses of the town. Every house was a rambling chateau, every shop was an emporium.

Architecturally-unlikely balconies oversaw this magnificent town from every window. Every fencepost and fiber of this place was expertly crafted to a superhuman degree, and all the artistry seemed to have been done with no seams, no joins, no nails, and no flaws. Yeah, this is a town that sees a couple hundred sorcerers per week. Several of them are currently sharing the skies with me: I appeared high overhead as was my preference in new places.

Years ago I had scouted this out from a distance to get my portal coordinates, but when I approached I had been challenged by someone demanding I back off, convinced I was trying to sneak ahead in the order. Further readings had confirmed to me that Kindlestop was rather stringently guarded, mostly by sorcerers who have been waiting for years for this opportunity and are quite paranoid about line-jumpers.

Two of them are zooming my way now, one was riding a metallic hoverboard and the other appeared to be flying freely like I do. They were scowling, and before they got close enough to get all shouty like last time I was here, I yelled out " Yes I'm on the list." Lion essence makes me loud. They slowed, and their expressions were still surly but now also a bit disappointed. They demanded I prove that today is my appointment, and I told them to pound sand.

They have no official authority here and are just self-nominated nuisances who were treating everyone around as a potential competitor for a limited resource. They wanted to argue, but I didn't, and the woman who can teleport will always get the last word. If there is anything about my life that is going to really spoil me forever, it's that fact right there. Not participating in arguments you don't want is such a blessing.

While they canvassed the skies to find me and demand my credentials, I stepped out from under a balcony awning with a bright-blue parasol in my hands, which makes me entirely disguised from the air. I speak with authority as someone who has tried to follow people while flying, parasols and wide-brimmed hats are the easiest ways to avoid them. It works better if the people searching for you know for a fact that you did not have a parasol just seconds ago.

From the street level the town was nice and scenic, and I could see how much work previous generations of sorcerers had contributed here. I kept my eyes out for opportunities to add my own flair, but I never did spot a likely target. So instead I stopped by at a tea shop and enjoyed a cup and some solitude while I read over a pamphlet that had been left on a rack near the door. Welcome to Kindlestop!

It included a history of the town (coal mining settlement, gas pocket, disaster, underground coal fire, evacuations, sorcerers came to put the fire out and discovered that it had formed a temple), and a basic sense of the political structure. A lot of tourism board stuff, but also prominently referenced was the procedures for the temple itself. One at a time, you have one hour from your initial entrance to your required exit. The town arbiter keeps the lists and brooks no arguments at all.

So, this 'arbiter' was the only person in town for whom I have to actually prove my bona fides. Those two I met earlier were just being haters on their own time. Also, this town had the strictest requirements for selling and sharing food and drink that I've ever known. There was a harsh schedule regarding exchanging magical labor for goods or services, and lots of local statutes to observe.

This is a town that thrives off the trade brought in from the sorcerers, but it also needs to make lots of provisions to deal with a regular traffic of people that can create, destroy, alter, levitate, animate, or emulate damn near any form of matter or energy. And sorcerers are people first and foremost, and any human being has a non-zero chance of being a cheat, a thief, or a bully.

There were a lot of scrivening sigils in this teahouse, to detect uses of sorcery, to counteract dangerous uses of sorcery, and to alert whether a given object was conjured. The shop owner was courteous, efficient, and never took her eyes off her various signaling sigils. Plus, the prices were fairly high, consistent with tourist traps. I headed downtown to check in with the arbiter, and my identity was easily established.

This far off the beaten path, not everyone would know Princess Natalie Harigold by description, and my brother's capacity for forged documents is dwarfed by what certain sorcerers can accomplish. So they checked identities the only way that mattered here: they have names listed next to essences. Jereniah Colver: Sand, tin, and mountain bluebirds. Gandral Luit: bread, mica, and maple. Natalie Harigold: void, levin, air. We used an abbreviated list because it just seemed rude to brag.

"You can work the air itself?" said the arbiter, a compact man with a craggy face, a bulbous nose, stylishly-cut yellow hair and a his shirt unbuttoned a couple places further than is normally considered polite. He also had a face made for this work, he could project skepticism and suspicion with very little effort.

"That's a useful one, doesn't come up often."

"I've run across few enough that can do it," I said, solidifying air for him to test for himself. He checked some sigils and had me run through a couple extra tests.

"And levin energy?" he said, with a eyebrow arched high, wary of a trick.

"Lightning?"

"What makes lightning so extraordinarily dangerous is the quantity of it," I pointed out, as I started playing electricity back and forth through my hands, sending arcs from my fingers on one hand to the other.

"They make machines that can control electricity to a degree, too," I said. He scoffed when he got to the last one.

"Void?" he said.

"What does that do? It sounds fake." The resulting detonation blew out every window in his building. I did shield him from the actually harmful effects, and I did fix the windows. But this guy's attitude had been rubbing me the wrong way. His authority comes from the fact that the local chamber of commerce wanted a better system than letting the sorcerers fight over whose turn is next. His appointment to a scrap of power does not let him lord over anyone he chooses.

Well, when we were done with that there wasn't much to do except to go actually stand in line. Sure, I could have gone back to the tea shop and come out when it was just a few minutes until my appointment, and that would have likely been more comfortable, sure. But on the other hand: fuck that, today is the day, I'm so wound up I'm a little giddy. Plenty of others feel the same way, because the line is ten deep when I arrive.

There is grumbling from the back of the line when I am moved up to the second spot, my place in the order being far ahead of the back of the line. Temple by appointment only, none of this first-come-first-served. Someone did cough-blurt-cough the words "cutting in line" as I was led to my position, but I magnanimously ignored it. Everyone here has already been waiting for years for our time, we are abiding by a schedule.

"Hi," said the sorceress that I was tucked in behind.

"I'm Elica Vinner. That's a nice necklace."

"Thanks, it was a gift," I said.

"My roommate's name is Elica, funny coincidence." She recoiled.

"Ah. Roommates. Sorry, I come from a small town, we just don't do things like that." It took me a second to catch on, but when I did I laughed.

"No no no. I'm at a boarding school. In a dorm. Just roommates." She loosened up a little after that, but there was an awkward embarrassment about her. Also, I don't think she entirely trusted my explanation about roommates. Maybe I give off a vibe, I don't know. We relaxed some when we discussed essences, which apparently is a fun ice-breaker for sorcerers and sorceresses outside of a formal setting. We may not have any unions or professional organizations, but there are customs.

Elica Vinner had dominion over violets, slate, and had been to the eagle temple before. I was sharing my story about the horse temple, which apparently is a very funny story for everyone who isn't me, when something I said caught her attention.

"Wait, portals? Travel- hang on, white hair, posh accent- are you Natalie Harigold?!"

"Hah, yes, actually, and-" She yelled over my shoulder to the rest of the line.

"Guys! Check it out! Look who's here at the fire temple today! It's Natalie Harigold!" The structure of the line broke down immediately, everyone moving forward to see, to ask, to shake hands. I had, briefly, let myself forget that I'm the most famous sorceress in the world. Not the strongest or the best, not by a long shot, but for reputation and renown there is nobody in my league.

I'm the sorceress that takes Enefiat Trazom out to museums, who saved a whole town from poverty, who blew up the entire Fissuring cliff-"I knocked holes in it, for roads to pass through, the rest of the cliff is still very much there-" - and who fought wizards to a standstill on their own terms.

"All right, yes, that is actually entirely accurate. It was some snooty majordomo working for Duke Quoissi Eyellon, who is also a wizard, and he had been pushing my buttons all day. So I set off an explosion, and told him to match his best shield against the shock wave. He barely made it, and if he'd been any closer to the epicenter he'd have needed my help to survive it." So it turns out those are the words to become a celebrated hero to a crowd of sorcerers.

I was glad the two grouches from earlier were gone, apparently their turns had both come up before I even visited the Arbiter. But virtually every sorcerer had a story of getting pushed around by wizards, especially magisters. If not through overwhelming power, then through their influence and authority and connections. Any wizard can be assumed to have a high position either in the government or in private enterprise.

Their role in controlling weather meant that they were accepted and welcomed by grateful people pretty much anywhere. The gratitude of all people is a hard lever to push against. And, for people that are fond of flying as most sorcerers are, it's pretty easy to get pushed around by people that can summon up catastrophic hurricane winds to blast everything more than twenty feet above roof level.

"Not to mention the organization," one malcontent was saying.

"How come they get professional associations and we don't?"

"Most industry-wide organization starts in schools," I reminded her.

"Wizards spend a lot of time in academies and universities, working on their Calculation. We get epiphanies instead, and not one in a hundred of us gets any kind of formal training with our spells." Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

"Also, we're just hard to organize," said another.

"Like, I have changed cities three times this year. Wizards always post up in one location and work the weather and local conditions. They're stable, we're...

""Flighty?" said a portly sorcerer, floating off the ground by way of demonstration. Elica Vinner was inside the temple right now, her turn had come. But I was still surrounded by friendly faces. This conversation was better than just sitting around chewing my fingernails but I could feel the way the tension in my whole person was just cranking tighter and tighter. I kept cheating looks over at the building. It was a grand thing, assembled by grateful or bored sorcerers some time before. Centuries or yesterday.

A grand skyscraper cathedral of stone and glass with incredibly detailed motifs and carvings. The stained-glass windows were frozen half-way through melting, the walls were wreathed in flames frozen in stone but still apparently dusted with soot as if fresher fires had also washed over this area. And inside, at the center, was a hole in the ground. A descent into an ancient mine, where fire held exclusive dominion now.

One upon a time that shaft would be navigated by ladders, a rope, or more likely some magical elevator. The ancients were less frugal about magical conveniences than the modern era, after all. But now there was too much heat for ladders or ropes, and it would be prohibitively expensive to fashion enough sigils to keep a moving platform protected against these flames for very long. Now, the only way to reach the descent, is to fly. And that's where sorcerers shine. Rare is the sorcerer who cannot fly.

And I admit to being bitter that it took me so long to get there myself. For five years the best I could do was lighten my steps or gentle my fall. Only last year did I start flying, and I have not looked back. But now I can descend to the midst of a raging, underground inferno, surrounded in all that is fire, at an essential level, a spiritual level. Today, one way or another, I'm going to build that affinity and fulfill a promise I made to myself the first day I saw sorcery with my own eyes.

Elica Vinner has been down a while. My turn is coming soon. Finally.