Chương 185: Book 3 Chapter 43: Arrivals

++The favouritism aimed towards Isabel Vornholt by the Grandmaster was legendary, even before his part in the defence of her refinery. Of course, him aiding there came as no surprise to the Vorets. ++ - Commentary by Maria Voret. 1, 938 A. E. The Grandmaster's arrival was useful for two major reasons. The first was more subtle, a great effect on morale.

Aadan Farah's name was known the world over, and though most people did not like magicians—especially those sorts who tended to become mercenaries and oil workers—you would be hard pressed to find a person who did not respect and fear their magic. That the Grandmaster of Garamon itself, possibly the single mightiest magician alive, had come to bolster my defences sent powerful waves of new certainty and courage rolling through my refinery.

But I knew better than to be so reassured, because I could tell his weakness was worse than ever. Magically speaking, the Grandmaster had never been stronger. Even now, with his lifespan measured in weeks or months, he was continuing to practice strengthening it, even while enduring a difficult journey. But that was only magical.

His body's infirmity had grown faster than his power, and it would not help him one bit to wield the raw strength of ten Third Class Highmages if he was forced to apply it through such a slow and fragile shell. I half expected the very wind to knock him down as he approached me.

"I hope you're bloody appreciative about this," the old man grunted as he approached me. He had taken up a shuffling, enfeebled gait that rather reminded me of a wounded animal.

"This'll be about the end of my career." I eyed him, and he picked up on my unasked question.

"Oh, I've been accused of grotesque favouritism, senility, all sorts of other things. Apparently all my little tidbits of help for you over the years have gone noticed, and added up. I suspect my leaving Laugrey to come and help you now will be the final nail in my coffin. If I ever bother to return, by the time I do, I'll be out of a job. Bogern will probably be preparing to take my place. Either him or one of the stronger Vorets."

"I was under the impression the most powerful Voret was Aravon Voret," I frowned. He laughed.

"Oh, no. Ideally he would be of course, in their head magical talent is the greatest quality there is and they'd all want to be led by the biggest genius around, but statistics are a funny thing and the Voret who's best to lead is rarely the most powerful. No, they usually have some middle-aged, rutting caveman installed. There's no hard rule that the Grandmaster of Winzorth has to be an Archmage, but if there were it wouldn't have been broken yet." Something flashed along his face, rage.

"I'm sacrificing precious hours I'd need to continue studying just so I could be here," he told me with a low voice.

"I hope you understand that—""I can help with that," someone else chimed in. It was Sethira of course, striding over and smiling like she always did. Others might have considered her cat-like glee endearing and innocent, provided they were ignorant of the ancient lich that lurked beneath it.

"You're the Grandmaster of Winzorth?" she asked.

"Lovely to meet you. Come with us." We made our way across the refinery, passed labourers and tar pits, until we had somewhere more private to discuss matters. The under-sections, where my undead toiled. There has always been something relaxing about the sound of reanimated corpses doing my bidding. It soothes me in a way that is hard to articulate. The continuous hammering of tools, the reverberations of physical effort without any sort of breathing or fatigue.

I tried to recapture the feeling by listening to industrial equipment early into my rebirth, but it was never quite the same. This was labour made perfect. Tireless and without the distractions of want or desire, and all bent to my will.

"What's going on here?" the Grandmaster asked. Sethira smiled, then glanced at me with a silent question. I gave her a nod and just watched.

"I'm Sakhent," she said after a moment. The man's dark skin hid any paling or flushes I might have perceived, but his look of pure shock was so strong that I almost thought I saw all the blood leave his features anyway.

"I see," he croaked. Neither of them said any more from there, though I had already seen enough to be rather confident in my previous suspicions that Sakhent's cult had been teaching the Grandmaster necromancy when I was not. Which was fine by me, a magician should scrape power from every place they could find it. It was the way of the world.

"What can you do for us?" I asked the Grandmaster up-front.

"Not fight, I assume." He smiled wryly.

"Standing here, as I am, required the usage of several rare and addictive potions I had to brew myself. I estimate they all doubled my physical strength, which is why my leg muscles can currently hold me aloft. I won't be fighting, no." Enjoying the story? Show your support by reading it on the official site.

"Could those potions empower our warriors?" I asked.

"Technically yes. But only very slightly. Even a middling warrior is strong enough that he'd barely notice the effects, they're additive rather than multiplicative." I had not really been hoping for any more.

"So your contribution will be…?"

"First," the Grandmaster cut in.

"My lifespan. How can you prolong it?" He aimed this question directly at Sethira, and I realised what she had just done. In one conversation, she was now more important to him than me. The Grandmaster had always wanted to live. That was all. From the moment I met him, his goal had been more life. More than nature had given him. He had long since learned that I could not provide that, and Sethira had jumped on that opportunity like a vulture.

I felt a tingle somewhere in my lower abdomen, which I promptly ignored to focus more fully on the conversation.

"My people have methods of preservation and…lichdom that are not known to our associate here," she smiled.

"If you can keep me alive long enough to acquire lichdom, you have my unconditional support," the Grandmaster said overtly.

"I'm too close to death for games now. Save me and you have me." Sethira giggled and clapped.

"Wonderful! Why did you come all this way if you weren't certain of that though?" His eyes darkened as he turned to me.

"She delayed my education for…too long. I wanted to confront her in person and see if she had one last hidden trick up her sleeve to save me."

"I did," I replied.

"Sethira here." She looked at me with unhidden amusement, and I waited for her to contradict me. Apparently Sethira knew better than to do it in front of me, at least. Though the Grandmaster seemed far from convinced.

"... right," he muttered.

"Well, assuming you're not lying and that I really can become a lich, that defacto makes me fully on your team just out of self-preservation. I take it that this refinery is useful to our long-term plans?"

"No," Sethira said.

"Yes," I replied at the same instant. The Grandmaster did not look amused.

"Sethira here is a creature of the ancient world," I explained.

"She does not understand the finer points of social influence over hard power."

"So that's two ancient liches disagreeing on whether this is worth it," the Grandmaster frowned.

"I would recommend going with the one who understands why we cannot simply print more money," I suggested. The Grandmaster did so, and we soon moved on to his contribution. Golemancy. The cloudscraper he had arrived in was not a large vessel, built for speed rather than lifting capacity, but it still boasted a cargo allowance of several dozen tons, and the Grandmaster had occupied virtually all of that with the raw materials needed to make more legal servitors.

He got to work on that task promptly, with myself and Sethira, for once, taking on the role of assistants rather than project leads. In purely technical terms, the Grandmaster was no better at golemancy than I was. Probably more experienced with it—I had never really given the subject any serious study until after my rebirth—but talent had a way of closing gaps like that. What he did have was far more raw power to throw around. By my estimate, he was wielding easily a hundred-and-fifty-thousand vis.

It was very rare indeed to be so thoroughly humbled, even as Isabel Vornholt. For a while now I had generally enjoyed the assumption that I was the most powerful magician in any given room. But I was not even half as powerful as the Grandmaster. Not even a sixth. At somewhere over one hundred years of age, he had acquired about as much raw magical strength as it was possible for any normal mortal to manage.

This was useless in battle for the simple fact of his mobility and fragility, but in this sort of work, long-form preparation, it meant he could do the work of dozens of ordinary magicians. And he was. A golem was a vastly expensive masterwork which demanded an indescribable amount of effort and time. In most cases. The Grandmaster, though, made their creations look as trivial as the carving of flint spearheads.

He was producing one every few hours, while Sethira and I were scrambling just to match one third of his workload. By the end of his first day we had a dozen of them in all. These were of a more conventional style than the ones I had been making, albeit taking that conventional science to its greatest possible heights. I was not sure whose were superior between myself and the Grandmaster on an individual level. What I did know was that a dozen more was a huge benefit.

Blakely, somewhat predictably, was not enthusiastic.

"How do you know they won't go mad and kill us all?" he asked the Grandmaster pointedly.

"They're not fully conscious, but it's possible to set them not to harm any of the men they're exposed to for given periods. So provided we make sure to acclimate each golem to every person in the refinery, they'll all be safe to set to battle mode when the attack comes."

"What if they're just pretending to be safe so they can get you by surprise?" Blakely asked. The Grandmaster smiled at him.

"Oh…you're not well, are you?" Blakely actually snapped at him, like a dog threatening to bite, and then left. The remaining half-hour was spent situating the golems by the outer walls and preparing a schedule to get them accustomed to the employees and defenders of my refinery. This went well enough, but was interrupted by Blakely appearing once more. This time the man was not nearly so calm as before. He actually half-sprinted his way towards me.

"Scouts," he said as he came to a stop before me.

"The scouts have returned,""Scouts?" I asked.

"I've been sending them out to keep an eye on the surrounding areas, having them move by horse and paying people in the local towns to tell them if anything passes. They've seen enemies approaching." My top priority changed quite quickly at that.

"How many?" I asked.

"From where? Moving how fast?" Blakely was calmer than any man I had ever seen, answering each question with mechanical precision.

"Reports vary, maybe a few thousand. I can't get any details about magicians or others. They're travelling as several different groups, probably to move fast, but they are on foot. And they're coming at us from several directions. They're not more than a hundred leagues away. Depending on how long they take to reconvene…we might have two weeks at most."