Chương 281: Chapter 280 - Kindling

Alexander waited for Selvah to finish cackling. Then he reached into the storage ring. The first staff materialized in his hand. Ancient dark wood, twisted grain running its length, with an uncut red gemstone the size of his fist set into the head. He laid it on the ground between them.

"This one came from a Discipline Ship. I don't know anything more about it." Wargah's gaze dropped to the staff, then rose to Alexander. The man's jaw tightened, but he said nothing. Alexander reached into the ring again. The second staff was simpler in design and lacked a giant gemstone on top. Lirum's. He laid it beside the first.

"Taken from a Second Circle wizard I captured near the mountains. This one has Fly and Acceleration bound into it." Minlah leaned forward.

"You're certain?"

"The wizard told me himself that he chose speed over teleportation." Alexander allowed himself a small grin.

"Can't say I blame him. He released the binding on this willingly for me." He reached into the ring a third time. Three more staves came out, one after another. He laid them in a row beside the first two.

"These came from a squad the Empire sent after me. They probably all have Fly and Teleport." Five staves lay on the ground between them. Minlah's eyes moved across them like she wanted to reach out and grab them. Selvah watched Alexander, her gaze darting between his eyes and his hands where forbidden objects kept appearing. He reached into the ring once more. The Marquess's staff materialized in his grip. It wasn't as plain as Lirum's, nor as ornate as the Discipline Ship staff, but its design was still dignified.

He added it to the collection.

"This one belonged to the Marquess of Harborhill. Fly and Teleport again. Maybe more." He paused.

"The soulbinding broke when I killed her." Wargah's eyes came up from the staff. He studied Alexander for a long moment. Six staves on the ground, and the man who'd put them there was sitting cross-legged in borrowed pants with no shirt, talking about killing an Empire Marquess the way someone might describe a chore they'd gotten around to. Alexander pulled the spellbook from the ring and held it out. The tent went quiet. Selvah's hands came up from her lap, fingers reaching. What remained of them.

Two fingers on her right hand and the rest stumps, the skin long healed over but uneven where the cuts had been made at different times across decades of defiance. Minlah rose. She crossed the space between them and took the spellbook from Alexander's hands. Then she stopped. Her fingers traced the thick, leather-bound cover and she stared down at it, standing there in the middle of the tent with the weight of it in her grip.

The thing her people had been forbidden to touch for as long as anyone alive could remember. She carried it to Selvah and placed it into her grandmother's hands. Then she settled onto the mat beside the old woman, close enough that their shoulders touched, and watched as Selvah opened the cover. The pages were dense with script and diagrams. Selvah turned them with care, her fingers and the heel of her palm working together in a grip that had long ago adapted to the absence of fingers. Her mouth hung open.

Her eyes moved across the pages with the hunger of someone who'd spent a lifetime knowing it existed and being told she had no right to it. Neither of them spoke. Wargah watched the two women with the book, then looked back at the staves, then at Alexander.

"If the Empire discovers we possess these, they will not take fingers. They will burn every clan at this gathering, the animals included." Minlah nodded without looking up.

"They can't track the staves or the spellbook directly," Alexander said.

"I'm certain of it. I carried them openly, used the ship's staff and spellbook to bluff my way into Harborhill pretending to be a Fifth Circle wizard. Nobody came looking until I attacked the Marquess's estate." Wargah frowned.

"And after?"

"He Who Whispers found me." All three of them looked up. Even Selvah, one finger still holding her place in the book. Minlah stared at him.

"An Exalted found you? And you survived?" Alexander nodded.

"He spoke to me through some kind of illusion. Threatened me. Offered me things. When I turned him down and insulted the Empress, the Marquess and another wizard tried to stop me." He gestured at himself, at the distinct lack of injuries.

"The Empire's wizards have interesting abilities. And some of them are pretty powerful, but they all suck in a fight. They rely too much on the same spells and they don't know what to do when they're fighting someone with different powers." Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation. The three of them exchanged glances. Wargah looked at Selvah. Minlah looked at Selvah. Selvah turned a page. Wargah was quiet for a while. When he spoke, the question came carefully.

"Alexander. I must ask something, and I ask it without any intention to offend." Alexander met his eyes.

"How strong are you? Truly." Alexander frowned. He looked up through the opening in the tent, where the low gray sky was still spitting rain. The question deserved an honest answer, but he'd come here to help. And there was a difference between honesty and making the people he was trying to aid afraid of him. If they thought of him as just another monster with more power than sense, the extremely delicate conversation to come was over before it started. But he also couldn't lie.

These people deserved better than that, and anything less than the truth would undermine every word that followed. He brought his gaze down and met Wargah's.

"I'm strong enough to kill every single person at this gathering." Selvah's finger slipped off the page. Minlah's lips parted. Wargah went very still. Minlah found her voice first.

"You mean our clan. Right?" Alexander shook his head.

"Everyone." All three of them stared at him. He glanced to the side.

"By my count, there are fourteen others that are roughly as strong as Wargah among the clans. And three who are stronger. Does that sound about right?" Minlah nodded.

"If all of them had a staff and a spellbook and some training…" He turned back.

"Maybe you'd have a shot. But even then I'd probably still kill half of you, and more than likely escape." Wargah's mouth hung open.

"How is this possible?" Alexander shrugged.

"I'm strong." Selvah narrowed her eyes.

"You speak half truths." He grinned at the old lady.

"You're right. The real problem isn't just that wizards are all predictable, using the same spells, which is a terrible thing when you're fighting a superhuman like myself. It's that you all have magic, and yet only a few of you can use it." He paused.

"If every single one of you could wield proper magic, I wouldn't stand a chance." Alexander reached into the ring once more and dumped all the wands he'd collected off to the side.

"That's why I also brought you these." Minlah shuffled over to the pile and began inspecting them.

"These are all combat wands."

"I didn't know there was a difference." She glanced at him over her shoulder.

"Each wand carries a single spell. The base has an etching showing the type of magic it holds." She held a wand toward him, backwards.

"See?" There was a little flame etched into the butt of the wand. Alexander nodded. Wargah pinched the bridge of his nose.

"You have not yet explained why you thought to bring these things to us. A few staves and a pile of wands will not protect us from the Empire's wrath when it comes looking. We cannot bind them, or else the System will change our class, and then the Empire will know." Alexander hesitated. He knew exactly what he was going to say, but something Wargah had said was odd.

"Class?"

"Yes," Minlah said.

"If we bind a staff or spellbook, the System will change our class to Wizard. Then we will appear in the rankings, and the Empire will come for us. They send clerks to every clan and city every five years to take down the names of the newly born. This way they know who everyone is and where they belong." That was new.

"Are there other classes besides Wizard?" Minlah and Wargah shared a look. Then as one they turned to the old woman. Selvah continued reading, not bothering to look up.

"The System ever favored the Stars, from the very first day it arrived in our world. It took their grand spells and made them the focus of all magic. This was long before I was born, and even then the Empire was already powerful." She turned the page.

"They waged war against the Great Clans, the Elders, and even against the peoples of distant shores. All of those whose magic had been weakened by the System. By the time I began to hear the winds, the Stars ruled everything. One was either a wizard, or nothing at all." That made the wizard world the second reality where the timeline of the System didn't align with Earth 1. Selvah looked up.

"But in recent years, the winds have whispered of the System's favor shifting. There are rumors that the great clans who called this gathering shall reveal something new. Merchants from the cities speak of even the Empire embracing those whose talents have become something more. New classes that wield magic, but without spells."

"But they're just rumors?" Selvah grinned a toothless grin.

"As are most truths, Alexander the Superhuman." The unfamiliar word rolled off her tongue awkwardly.

"Until they are proven. Such as your battle in the sky with the Marquess of Harborhill."

"What?"

"Oh yes. I already knew of it. There were survivors of the Stars' cleansing fire which destroyed the city." Alexander's blood ran cold. Selvah continued.

"They were rescued by one of the other clans before they arrived here. Their story has already—" Both mental threads turned inward. The Empire had to have known he'd taken the Marquess's staff. There'd been a dozen witnesses that saw him disappear into the basement carrying the woman by the throat, and her staff in his other hand. They would have found her body lying on the floor, her neck snapped. It didn't take a genius to put two and two together. And for good measure, he'd robbed the guards of all their wands.

Everywhere he went he blatantly stole from the Empire. There was no doubt they knew it was him. They had no reason to—"Do you mean for us to have all of these?" He blinked.

"Sorry. What?" Selvah waved the spellbook in front of her.

"Are you giving these to our clan?" Alexander took a deep breath. He shunted Harborhill and its residents entirely into one mental thread. Then another breath.

"Yes. I wanted to give you and your people a fighting chance. I figured you could take all of this and learn the magic without binding them to your souls, and in time you'd grow strong enough to resist the Empire." He took one more carefully controlled breath.

"But now I think I'd like to go a little further." Alexander met the gaze of each clan member, one after the other.

"Anyone's welcome at the Gathering of the Sky, right?" All three of them nodded.