Chương 60: Chapter 59: A Peek At Creation

++There are secrets to the cosmos that I do not know, even now. But I am getting there. I knew far less after my rebirth, and many of the things that saw my return to power came to me through study more than talent. ++ - From the writings of Isabel Vornholt, 'The Great Lich'. 1, 891 A. E. The leyline was my destination, which made it Agrian and Victoria's destination too. I did not bother to inform them of this fact, however.

The way I saw it, people who insisted on following others for no reason had already forfeited their right to know where they might end up. Five years ago, when the Vornholt estate had last been my permanent home, I would have had a hard time exiting its grounds and heading for the leyline. I had been a little girl then, and people always had a good reason for why I did not have the right to do something one way or another.

Their attitudes had not, in fact, changed all that much, but now I was older, and more powerful myself. One servant attempted to halt me, only one. I educated her on why this was an awful idea and continued on my way. Around the Vornholt estate, the lands remained hilly and green. I walked through a good mile of healthy grass and sparse trees, surrounded mostly by grazing cattle in the fields, before noticing the first physical change.

The magic of the leyline had been apparent to me from miles away, but now I was seeing it affect the world directly. Grass became cyan and lilac rather than green, wind currents moved at an unnatural or unpredictable vector, the air smelled faintly of roses. A hundred little oddities cycled through with each passing moment, all growing stronger and more intense as we approached our destination. Before we were even halfway there, Victoria piped up in a small, quiet voice.

"Isabel, I'm scared, I want to go back!" The girl sounded to be on the brink of tears her eyes darting to the strange flora like she feared it might attach. Unfortunately for her, I did not care.

"We cannot," I told her.

"You wanted to come with me, it is too late to turn back now."

"Isabel please, I'm scared, please take me back!" her voice suddenly irritated me, and I turned around to glare at her.

"Do not plead," I snapped.

"It is pathetic. It achieves nothing but to make you look weak. People will not do as you say just because you ask them nicely, the world does not care about you. If you want something to happen, make it happen yourself." Her crying stopped as she stared at me with an unreadable blend of emotion. Agrian's were a bit more conventional.

"Isabel!" he growled.

"Too far, she's seven!"

"She is old enough to start learning how the world works," I retorted.

"She will not be seven, or a child, for much longer. By the time she is an adult, she will need to know how to handle others." Victoria stopped walking instantly, then turned and started heading back to the estate.

"I'm going back!" she declared.

"And you need to come with me if you don't want me to be kidnapped!" the girl had a smug, victorious grin upon her face. Where in the world had she learned of our family's past experience with kidnapping? No matter, she was using it now, and using it moderately well, for a seven-year-old. I actually found myself somewhat proud. Of course, I could not simply let her walk back, nor could I accompany her and give her the victory.

Victoria had to learn that she could not beat her older sister if we were to enjoy the relationship I planned for us.

"Not a bad start," I sighed, cocooning her in aether as she screamed in surprise.

"You simply failed to consider what it is we are physically capable of doing." Victoria first yelled then struggled, then sobbed at the confinement, while Agrian looked at her with a stare of pure conflict.

"Carry her, and we can walk quicker," I suggested to him.

"She will be out of the cocoon that much faster." Agrian caved quickly, and we made our progress more easily after that. Soon enough, though, even he was growing concerned with the landscape around us.

"I've gotten this close before," he noted.

"But only ever with father, and he told me it could be dangerous."

"Relax," I said confidently. I did not actually have a reason for why he should, I could hardly volunteer my own experience with leylines, but a clear order spoken with certainty will cause just about any person to obey. We made the last quarter-mile of our trek in silence. That silence ended when we finally came to within line of sight of the worksite itself. Victoria's voice was the first to ring out, a wordless gasp of pure awe. Agrian himself just remained quiet, while I let out an appreciative hum.

Thousands of years was a long time, apparently long enough for humanity to master nature. The leyline itself was visible to me, and only me, as a great, pulsing crease across the fabric of creation. It ran through air, and through solid stone where a long rocky set of plateaus had risen up from the ground around it. Into these plateaus, the refinery was built. Consisting of many different buildings, all belching smoke and steam as coal-powered engines ground away to do their work.

Men scurried in and out of them, attending to conveyor belts moving piles of rock that glinted unnaturally even in the dark. Natural aether deposits, I wagered, as well as other, more valuable substances. What was of more interest to me, though, was the deep hole cut into the surface of the main rock itself.

"What is that?" I asked Agrian.

"It's a family secret," he replied quickly. I glared at him, and he seemed to remember his promise to me. A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

"... It's the entrance into the deepest, most intense part of the leyline. We introduce animals down there, sometimes they mutate. Weapons and such can become naturally infused with magic if you leave them in it, too." Fascinating. It was certainly primitive, but the people of Garamon had apparently learned to replicate the natural effects that came from mundane objects and creatures being exposed to the primal energies of mana.

"I want to see closer," I told him. His eyes shot wide with alarm.

"No, absolutely not, it's bad enough that you're even this close."

"I want to see too!" Victoria chirped. I noticed the girl had stopped struggling against her cocoon, and now seemed more fascinated with the leyline than scared of it. With only a brief hesitation, I released my mana and freed her to drop from Agrian's grip. She did not run away.

"I'm putting my foot down here," Agrian snapped.

"Victoria isn't coming in."

"Well you obviously cannot trust her just to listen," I noted idly.

"You had best stay here and watch her so that she does not follow me in." I was already walking by the time I had said even that much, leaving Agrian to frantically call after me even while trying to keep our sister from following. He could have bound Victoria himself, as I did, but I assumed he would not want to do that. I was proven right. I made my way over to the plateau with a smile on my face. Things had really been going my way recently.

They became somewhat more difficult as I approached the leyline itself; there were, after all, a great many people there, and unlike the servants of the Vornholt estate, these labourers and foremen were not accustomed to being ordered around by the family's children. Indeed, they did not at first even know who I was.

"Oi," a man growled as I grew near.

"This is a dangerous site, get out of here!" I ignored him at first, just continued walking. I was dragged into acknowledging his presence only when the man reared up in front of me and left me with no choice. He was large, even for an adult man. Maybe a foot taller than me. His skin was grimy with detritus and sweat, and he had a look to his hands that told me they had been used for a great deal of rough work. He was far from friendly, looking down on me as he was.

"Did you hear me?" he snarled.

"This is a private site, now get lost you little bitch." Apparently my casual-wear was not obviously-noble enough for my station to sink in. I did not blink before the man of course; in my time I had been threatened by creatures one thousand times larger and two thousand times more aggressive than this mouth-breathing thug.

"I am Isabel Vornholt," I told him.

"Daughter to Baron Vornholt, owner of the Lachfel Trading Company, and magician-apprentice at the Winzorth Institute. I am here to look at the leyline. If you physically interfere with my efforts, I will… punish you for it." I wove a bit of mana to show him I was not bluffing, letting it bleed into visible light. A harmless display, but one that I imagined would seem impressive to a total amateur as it left me literally glowing with power. The man was every bit as affected as I would have expected.

All of his mean bluster disappeared in an instant, and he stumbled away from me like he was suddenly staring down a bear.

"I…I…I…"

"Shut up," I snapped. He shut up.

"If you are too stupid to talk properly, then remain silent in my presence," I added.

"I have no interest in listening to grunting morons mewl about around me. Now get out of my way." He practically tripped over himself to clear a path for me as I headed on towards the rocky opening. More men were around it, and they looked to be on the brink of swarming me as I approached. My glowing skin, and a shouted warning from their coworker, ensured they did not. I was able to enter the opening without further incident, and wasted no time in venturing deep inside.

The walls were cramped, or felt it compared to the sprawling hills outside. That would not have fazed me in my previous life, but though I was now stronger than even most war-magicians I still struggled to break apart thick sections of solid stone at this point. A cave-in might trap me for hours, days, even weeks. Fear electrified me, kept me alert. I let my mana sight expand and took in every detail I could see, the folds of existential breakdown running sharply through open air.

This close, I was barely seeing more than I felt anyway. Leylines. Things that ought not be, but were. In my time, their secrets were still a mystery. In this time, it seemed little had been done to change that. But I had a theory, at least. Because I had felt the sensations running through me here somewhere before as well, not counting other leylines. Stronger and more directly. I had felt them in the Depths, that accursed prison of mine. The feeling grew deeper as I went, more intense and inexorably… unnerving.

The Depths were not my favourite place. I was entirely fascinated with them, but that did not mean I remembered my time there fondly. To my shame, I started to feel worries gnawing at my wits. What if I was somehow dragged back into the realm? What if this was, somehow, a trap from the Gods in case I ever escaped? All ludicrous, but it was not rational thought that brought these concerns to the forefront of my mind. All I could do was try my best to ignore them and venture on.

I finally stopped after coming to what I assumed was the central chamber in this little construction project. Here I found other men, all of them too busy working to take note of me. They were toned, though not especially big or muscled, and drenched in sweat, swinging pickaxes into rocky surfaces and shoving fistfuls of what broke away into sacks. I could see the magic in what they were extracting, and recognised, once more, the touch of the Depths. I could also recognise how much it was dwindling.

Not fast, not all at once, but moment by moment. There was a space in the centre of the chamber, the source of all this power. The point where the leyline was either flowing most strongly… or flowing from. I approached it, held out a hand to touch… Nothing, naturally. It was not a physical thing. I tried to probe it magically, but in my current state the mastery I had over mana was like a drunkard's sausage-fingers compared to the deftness of this construct.

Easier to finely sew using a pair of hammers than to interact with this as I was. Disappointment was my first thought, but there was no despair. This was another opportunity. Not only had I discovered something worth training my magical dexterity for, beyond just the basic levels I had been acquiring to ensure it was not the bottleneck in my spellcasting, but I had been given a very promising source to investigate. I turned from the leyline's centre and began making my way from the cavern.

I half-expected to find my furious father waiting for me, but of course he would not be hearing about this for at least a half hour more, busy as he was with Qaigor. I still hurried slightly as I walked out.

"Well?" Agrian asked, eager for an answer despite his reluctance to let me come here. Victoria was standing beside him, arms crossed, glaring up at me.

"I saw quite an interesting—" —"you left me!" Victoria yelled abruptly. I turned to her, surprised, confused and a little annoyed.

"What?"

"You left me here with Agrian!" she snapped.

"Yes I did. Now be quiet," I turned back to our brother, but Victoria reached over and suddenly bit me on the hand. The shock was of more effect than the pain, though her teeth were a good deal sharper and stronger than I would have expected from such a small mouth.

"You demon!" I snapped, yanking my hand back and glaring down at the girl. To my surprise, she glared back.

"Don't ignore me!" Victoria screamed.

"You left me!" I had to calm myself.

"You would have been inconvenient in there," I explained.

"And I needed you to keep Agrian busy so I could investigate alone."

"You left me!" Clearly she was beyond reason, though I should not have been so surprised by that considering she was, in fact, a seven-year-old.

"I…did," I managed after a moment. How I wished I could simply respond with a beating. How I wished I did not need her loyalty.

"... I will not do it again." Victoria just glared, repeatedly sniffing through her nose. Slowly she started to sob, then held her arms out for a hug.

"Oh, no," I said sternly, taking a step back as she drew nearer.

"Victoria no, your nostrils are leaking I—no!" she embraced me anyway, while Agrian snickered. I missed the days of my old power, back before I had to deal with meat.