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Horde Thief
Chapter 35
The still unfamiliar pen slips in your fingers, though your preternatural dexterity is enough to catch it short of crossing through an entire line of notes. The lack of your faithful writing companion after so many years cuts deeper than you though it could, and the odd construction of this world's pens has almost driven you to the use of pencils. This world has made some fascinating versions of them, but there's something about the solidity of ink on a page that you prefer. Not that your world has paper anything like what this one takes so clearly for granted. Even the finest work of extraplanar industry is a far cry from the crisp, uniform sheet laid out on the table, half full of neatly written notes. It's so thin that you had to adjust how you write, with a much lighter touch.
Not the time, you chastise yourself, but the sheaf of notes neatly stacked on the bookshelf to one side is difficult to ignore when your thoughts wander to home. A chronicle of the days and nights spent trying to find your own way home, all the spells and effort you'd spent on the matter ended in the same place. Somehow, this realm was barred from the inside, a block that cut short any attempt to reach out for home. Attempting to move yourself instead of bringing something to you didn't help either, rebounding off a wall of power unlike anything you'd ever felt. If the Wall was an anchor, restricting all but the most powerful from moving beyond its ramparts, then this was a barrier of veiled adamantine.
The last of the laws of Harry's people, and one he respects greatly, speaks of the Outer Gates, a term you find yourself using in your more recent notes on the matter. You can only imagine how much power the Elder Brain must have committed to punch you through into this reality, unless it was easier to enter from the outside then escape from within. One might bode ill for a quick rescue, but the other…makes you wonder and fear at what the barrier might be holding in. Your own forays into the mystery with magic have been less than helpful, too, your spells returning no answer beyond a haze of shifting snowflakes. Winter's work, it seems, again raising questions. You would ask Harry, but in this it seems wiser to leave for now. If Winter is involved, then the power of his Mantle might act against any attempt on his part to explain anything he knows.
That alone had driven you towards the work laid out around you on the simple desk of plain hardwood, set into the study of the home Marcone helped you acquire. The papers are written in the language of your ancestors, that no one else on this planet would understand, and given what you are attempting you are glad for it. From what Lya has said, ciphers and research notes go together rather poorly. Sketches take to it even worse, something you've been doing more than a little of since you begun this project. You finish the line, and set the pen down, capping it carefully, and blow gently on the sheet of paper before setting it to one side. A detailed diagram replaces it, the result of more than a score of far simpler sketches and what you hope will be the foundation of your work's completion.
What you said to Harry a day ago in his lab had not truly been how you intended to release him and Lady Carpenter from the strict confines of their Mantles. With more study, you had little doubt you could find a way to separate them from them entirely, but delicate workings upon a mortal soul were more Lya's forte than your own. You could do it, but your magic is less naturally suited to those subtle tasks, and you remain unsure of what consequences might arise. And from what both have said on the matter, neither truly hates their place as Knight or Lady. Much of what they do is work that is needful, but what the Mantles force upon them can be difficult to control.
That goal, to greatly restrict the power that the Mantles holds over them, does not require anything nearly so great as the power of the Angels Harry spoke of. For that, you have but to follow the path already set before you, by the warding you've set upon Harry a dozen times and more since you first met. You might have been concerned that Lady Carpenter would prove a greater challenge, but that first meeting had put paid to any such worries. She'd begun a Soulgaze with you and as far as you knew, only a mortal Wizard of this world could do that. If either her or Harry had realised that was another matter. With that as a baseline, though, you'd been able to use what you'd seen of her Mantle to expand on how you thought they worked.
The Mantles, as Harry told you, aren't just power. They aren't just instincts and awareness of Law, and obligation. They're made of power, but they have a will, at some level. For a while, you'd wondered if bargaining with that will was possible, but on learning more of their nature you dismissed the plan. Harry has been changed by his Mantle, as has his apprentice, but in her case the changes aren't as deep as they believe them to be. Despite what anyone has told her, Molly Carpenter is still human, or human enough. You've seen that through your magic, and divining spells confirm the suspicion beyond doubt.
The magical interference that disrupts modern technology is still present around her too, smoothed away by her Mantle, as it does to her spells as well. You doubt either of the Wizards are even aware of that, but they've never had an outside perspective in the way you do. Or a very different form of magic to compare their own to.
You first noticed it through your work with Harry, with Molly acting as a confirmation point for your suspicions. No mage of your own world has the sheer versatility that Harry and his kind appear to be capable of, and few dedicated to casting through knowledge are as effective in physical combat. Yet, to your senses, his spells are almost…crude. They work, of course, but there's energy wasted where your own magic appears to not lose a drop. That wasted energy could well be what causes the technological havoc around a wizard of this world when they use their magic.
Still, that isn't the focus of your research. Observing the Mantles in the experiments you've had Molly and Harry carry out has given you enough of an understanding of them beyond their basic nature to formulate a proper defence. It builds on the ward that is set into the Conqueror's Crown, but given how swiftly the Mantles break those effects down, a physical anchor was needed. You considered Valyrian Steel for a short while, but the metal is too antagonistic to the powers of this world's Winter, as it is to your own.
"I would hope that I am not too much the same," Dark Sister's mental tone is dry, like the rasp of steel left without proper care in the scabbard. With the aid of a spirit of knowledge that one was Harry's advisor, she's begun to learn how this world has changed her. The blade itself is laid against the side of the desk, within easy reach.
"I would never call you such, except in your effects upon our enemies," you reply, entirely sincere. A look to the window, finds Varys perched on the ledge, looking down at the fake wilderness that made up the rest of the property, her scales reflecting the pale shimmer of the winter sun. She misses the freedom of the sky, you can tell, an echo of your own dissatisfaction with the seemingly omnipresent 'radar' stations and satellites that keeps you from flying in your own draconic form. At least she has the night.
Still, you have other things to occupy you in the evenings, at least until your ward needs rest. You turn your attention again back to the diagram, looking over it for imperfections. Faeries were burned by steel and iron in this world far more deeply than they were in yours, so you've delved into the storage of your cloak and satchel to look for a better grounding. Those experiments have been fascinating so far, as you discover…not greater, but seemingly deeper effects in the materials you carried with you into his world.
Harry's talked apologetically of hoping for a solution in months or years, and you wonder what he'd think if he knew how close you really are. Or, at least, think you are. All signs look good, but nothing is perfect and this world is very different to your own. But with a design this simple, the basics are unlikely to change. The current diagram is a ring, the majority of it an anchor for the web of purer substance that you plan to weave into and over that base to bind the power you plan to pour into it to a steady form. All that remains for now is to test your choice of materials, but that may have to wait until another day.
You have another excursion with Harry tonight, one of the last of the dossiers the Council had sent. At least this one is only one person, which will make any clean up you have to do simpler. There is a limit to how much damage a single person can do, after all. Still, you're almost done, and from what Harry has said the Merlin has been having a delightful amount of trouble with the parties who wish to expand the Council's support to the Paranet into something formal.
You shake your head and stand, you're not going to get anything more done tonight with these thoughts on your mind. A gesture pulls the scattered sheets of paper together into a neat pile, and you transfer them carefully to a steel box in the drawer of the desk. Given what you're attempting, it pays to be cautious.
"Milady, if I might have the honour of your use for practice?" You ask Dark Sister, catching the blade up with a hand as you lock the box, and then the drawer after it. Varys glides to your shoulder, alighting with all the casual grace of a bored predator, and her tail wraps around the back of your neck to stabilise her.
"You'll wear down the point on her blade if you keep on doing this," your familiar hisses, but you can sense the touch of gratitude beneath the jest. Without the freedom of the sky, or others to fly with, Varys has been staying much closer to you.
"A millennia and more did not do that," Dark Sister replies in a steady tone.
"I believe I will survive another practice session."
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