The Broken Valley

At nightfall Kalia entered the temple. Thankfully, it was one of the vacated ones that had been spared from mage attention, so she could safely meet with her friend. Strange how times changed everything. Years ago, during the Arch Mage’s youth, she would’ve been forbidden from human interaction. She released a silent prayer and hoped that, wherever he was, Astaros was well. Despite her better knowledge.

It was the middle of the night shortly before dawn, when he arrived. Even the drunkards lay in bed by now which ensured their tactics remained between as few as possible.

Kosartes rolled on his heels, watching a mural of Kalia’s ancestors in the heyday of magic, the cosmic diplomats who governed in the Synedrion of the Aurian League.

“So… how’s the tyrant hunting going?”

She cleared her throat. “Good. Me and Tholos finished off two more, who had taken over cities to the west.”

“And he didn’t even thank you?”

“Me and the King don’t have that kind of relationship.” Not anymore, she thought. “Anyways, thanks again for your help with Cyarax the other day. I know it was dangerous, but we gained aidful insight. Not to mention that the outrage you caused will buy us time to prepare should he choose to invade.”

Yes, in truth Kalia was working against Taros herself, she couldn’t shake the duty of an Aurian. Just like the King couldn’t. But she didn’t mean to conquer Taros. She merely wanted to deliver it to its people and protect her own nation from its greediness.

He nodded, solemn. “Dangerous it was. For a moment there I thought you’d lost the connection and I couldn’t return.”

“Like the last time, I had you. Stop worrying.”

“Well, this is new technology. Imagine what you could do with it if you somehow made it work bidirectional and on multiple charges. This could mean the end of portal travel!”

“I wouldn’t go that far, but the rapid advance of the portal guilds is admirable. We can’t smuggle you in some place but as long as that anchor is charged, we can smuggle you out. Even if that place is protected from disruption. Effective.”

He concurred. “Effective indeed. You should have seen him, Kalia. It is worse than we thought. He has his magic not one bit under control. It rather rules him. And as he gets older and, naturally stronger, he’s getting worse. I am certain he believes that his theurgy speaks to him. It’s like in the stories, as if I would have a discussion with my cravings! Can you imagine?”

Kalia could. She was well aware that elder dynasties were heavily affected by the composition of their souls. The Aurians had the Fever, the Pharos had the Voices. The theurgical purity in them challenged sanity which caused some mages to lose their minds. In almost every aspect they were superior to the humans, except for the mental state. Here it was worse for them, their race more prone to the internal stimuli of thought.

“There… is something else, Kalia.”

She cocked her brow. Kosartes… he appeared demure all of a sudden. The man of jokes and quick remarks turned sullen. An odd impression. Let’s get it over with. “Will the people move against my family so soon?”

“They are strong. They are willful and they have resources. You can’t improve the economy and expect people to not expand.”

“Fully agreed. So why so solemn, Kosartes?”

“Recently…” He inhaled, held his breath, and let it go in one vast exhale. “I have found an anomaly in our plan.”

“Anomalies are not bad. Not categorically at least.”

“This one might be. I don’t want the young to get hurt.”

The young? “I cannot help you, Kosartes, if you are not honest with me.”

“I am afraid what this might do to you if I disclose.”

“Afraid? Kosartes, it’s me. When have you ever been afraid to tell me, to my face, how my family fails this nation?” It was so odd to see her friend like that. Her friend that built the new system in the humans while she did the same among the mages.

“This might lead you to change your mind altogether.”

Brevity was no mark of Kosartes. But she felt that if she would press him now, his short answers would abate altogether and he would neglect her. Kalia let the topic drop, therefore. Let him come to her when he was ready. “Do you need me to bring you back?”

Kosartes nodded, somehow breathing easier than he had before .

“Let’s get to it then.” Kalia hated disruptions.

🏛️

After Kalia had delivered Kosartes safely, having gained little to no rest since, she chose to visit the King. But the King was not in his tent, so she closed the tarpaulin and walked the camp.

She had often been to this Valley in her youth as it had been a favorite spot of her cousin. Astaros had loved the calm of the wide plain, the sandy beach, widening and shrinking in the tides, the melancholy of the fallen temples, former vantage points of glory. Even some ruins of the aqueduct-like, ancient magical canals had been discovered during the baring of the site to research the ancient world.

It was nothing like in her memory.

The old grid layer of the city still stood but that was just about what had remained of the archeological site.

Kalia made out paved streets, bisected and parted into different districts. Most columns and posts had been rebuilt, too. The sewage system worked, and bath complexes sprouted with the reinstalment of the aqueducts. And on its border to the wilderness stood the Arch of Cane, marking the end of the city like a giant, white gate, planted on the end of the plain so everyone from miles away saw that long ago a great city had called the Broken Valley its home.

Soldiers marched to and fro, busying themselves with digging trenches, mending crumbled walls of the gymnasia and crevices, carrying wagonloads of books and scrolls into the adjacent libraries, filling catch grounds with buckets of sand, and following orders of aquitects for the reparations of bathhouses and aqueducts.

Stonemasons tended to the least preserved buildings, mainly the boathouses and the hippodrome as well as the circus. Did Aevar plan on housing games before the deployment?

Afar, Kalia heard the forest being cut down. Driving on the repaved road from it, towards the open archway, a supply chain of carriages rode in and deposed the oak before several factories. From the factories emanated woodcutters and carpenters, distributing the planks among workbenches for further development.

Further west, nigh the catch grounds and gymnasia, she spotted the legions in their glinting silver steel, like a reflection of a moon-lit lake. They were deep in training, piercing puppets with javelins and swinging edges against the summer breeze, wrestling, and playing stratagems.

Behind her on the pasturage, that hadn’t been bothered with cattle for years, sheep, cows, and pigs grazed the field. Nourishment for the war tribes.

The vastness of this enterprise… The costs to feed, shelter, employ, and entertain such numbers, not to mention the fact that the campaign would last for months, maybe years. The conservative calculation told her this would amount to more than a million gold suns, around a hundred gold talents. And she hadn’t yet considered the wages of the mages. This, then, was where the exploits of the gold mine, situated in the former kingdom, which was now the Valley of Wind, went. For Kalia knew that Aevar had not touched the state treasury. Not yet at least.

It was an ingenious value chain. Everyone had business to attend to, usually working with or fighting against someone. Even scholars hastened through the camps, exchanging their formulas and predictions with the aquitects and astronomers, looking for the divine way to shape the water bridges and to reactivate the World Temples.

A shame that this level of sophistication was wasted on a war. What she could do with it!

Kalia started. She hated it when cosmic mages did this and returned a flippant curse. He’d appeared exactly beside her ear with a violent tear. The knuckles protruded in white, and she hissed, “Stop that madness!”

Purple mist fused back with the atmosphere. “Walk with me.“

Among the sheer multitude of people bustling in and out of their tents, she learned that the High Mages had gone missing. When she inquired after them, Aevar quickly placated her, telling her they had parted and taken a closer look at the World Temples to descry whether their transportation was truly lost. They went back the way she came into the King’s tent and Kalia surveyed it all over again.

His tent was well furnished with armory, wine, and food. Divans and couches of gold and velvet had been organized as if Aevar was expecting another king for a state visit, short of the fact that there were none left in the Ancient Lands except himself. He had bested them all, usually through a duel. That he’d actually stormed a fortress at his age and risk defeat was bold even in Aurian terms.

Carpets with the vile eagle sigil hung from the stakes that upheld the canvas and were stretched out at her feet. Her family’s crest, the daunting black eagle, that reigned his minor relatives, glanced at her from left to right. And, of course, there was also a bathing chamber with Hypathia already waiting. He winked and she disappeared behind the tarp to her left. Good. Her broad bosom and pointed nipples would only serve to distract, and the King required every mindfulness he could get.

“Why am I here?” she asked.

He stared her straight in the eye, his amethysts gleaming sickly like someone who hadn’t eaten in a couple of days. “You are a gifted strategist, Kalia. It’s in your essence. Would you not fight your nature so vigorously, you could be a great conqueress.”

“You don’t need me for that.”

“No,” he chuckled. “I do not. But I wanted to hear your voice.” A flash hushed over his face and covered his pale skin with red dots. Aevar regained his composure, and his eyes sparkled once more mischievously. His skin lost its redness, leaving his natural pallor behind. Was there… had she perceived a glimpse of sadness? Solitude maybe? “What do you think of this?”

“A fine tent.”

He flicked his tongue and gone was the expression. “Not the damn tent. What has become of the Broken Valley, darling-sweetness.”

The cataclysms surely took their toll. Because of several storms in one year followed by a vast calamity during which Kalia’s cousin had died, the former capital of the Valley and its surroundings had been abandoned, even though the land was rich and cultivated and held ruins of massive importance to the right mind.

She took a bored glimpse around, as though Aevar had in actuality been alluding to the look of his tent. “I would love to see this part of our commonwealth being reinhabited, but I don’t think you plan to nurture a new colony here, Uncle.”

The King was not in the mood for a verbal exchange. Instead, Aevar crammed out a large map and spread it across a newly crafted table that smelled of fresh olive. He pierced the map edges with four consecutive dagger strokes, all golden, all embedded with jewelry. The King was such a fop…

The map was a depiction of the Ancient Lands and the closest continents surrounding it. With his finger, he drew a straight line from Pergarys, where they were now, to the northern coast of Velene, part of the tyrants’ dominion Taros. “We’re in a terrible competition, Kalia.”

“With a tyranny? I don’t think so.”

“What do you think the tyrannies do these days?” Aevar picked up. “Regarding mages, their numbers exceed ours by far. They have expert poets, who speak the sonnet as well as our portal guilds, maybe even better. Plus, they know how to use the old World Temples! They are preparing for conquest, only that theirs will lead them out of our bounds. And should they gain the outer realms, it won’t be just fire and death upon us. It’ll be like in the days before the Aurian Leage, before the Golden Age of Magic. It’ll mean entrapment and slavery for our kind.”

Aevar wasn’t joking and she felt the impact of his words. The stories of what had come before the Aurian League rang in her like a song of blood, like her ancestors had imprinted the deepest parts of their essence with the suffering they had endured, so that the warning would never abate. She couldn’t believe him, though. Taros was in no condition to conquer. They didn’t even have their own people under control. His was a mission of greed. “And war is your only solution?”

He went past her question; didn’t bother to consider it’s deeper meaning. Instead, he tapped on the seven large islands, surrounded by speckles of many tinier ones, as though a giant had once smashed a hammer on a large landmass and fractured its wholeness. “We’ll attack threefold. First, we will deploy our navy on the coast of Auranis.”

She frowned. Direct passage was impossible. “Our city there still stands?” The one Astaros had founded during his shattered campaign.

The King brimmed. “They burned it. But the walls stand, and it means good fortune to take up residence in the former Aurian capital.”

“I already see an issue.”

He sighed. “Of course you do, Niece. Out with it.”

“Thank you, Uncle.” She ignored the jab and continued, “The problem is that Auranis is very much at the tip of the red continent, where it parts the Restless Sea from the Lake Sea, and to reach it, you will have to cross a wide area and circumvent the stormy and stormier waters up north.”

“No, I won’t. My ships will go through the narrow of Velene.” He pointed to a small spot on the map. One of the lesser territories, it afforded a river right through its middle that was deep and broad enough even for large galleys to cross. The island also forged a direct path through the tempestuous waters of the south. “Venix has cleared the passage for us. We will go through the gap of her island.”

Kalia had hoped too soon. Venix, although she was a tyrant, was still looking amiably towards the Ancient Lands. She had to be the rogue tyrant out of the seven, who made this attack way more plausible. Kalia cursed inside her brain. “What’s the rest of this threefold attack?”

The King resumed, “Remember last time? When our host was hungered, suffered disease, and bled to death? My son planned for a quick conquest while the enemy countered with delay tactics. So now we will do the reverse.

“Most of our ships will establish a steady supply route between our continents, bringing in all goods and services that we may need until we can take over their portals one by one and break the barriers. But a fair number of our fleet will also travel from island to island and conquer the coastal cities there, establishing permanent residence. Last time we underestimated them. We marched into their islands as though they were vacated of life, when it was their steady flux of barbarian soldiers and harassing ambushes that caused the greatest losses on our sides. Had the skirmishes with Sertorios not been so severe on us, I would call him a tactical prodigy.”

Sertorios of Dawnshatter, the only general to ever defeat her cousin. Not directly of course, nobody could do that. But his careful approach of what battle grounds to enter and what to forfeit without much hassle had cost them the campaign.

The King continued. “The main army will move inland and secure the island of Crater Bay, where we will reinstitute Auranis as a capital until we can lay siege on the center: Sunfall.”

“Astaros did not come that far during his campaign.”

He hemmed. “He was the general of the blood march.” That was the name the mages had given him during the civil war. “Our continent has the best roads in the world, connecting hundreds of cities, established by the human kings as they could not traverse land our way. But the red continent is an amalgamation of islands. Even if they wanted to, they couldn’t afford our architecture. And he still treated his campaign as another ‘blood march’.

“Astaros always moved with his forces on foot and forced his mages to do the same. This worked greatly in our commonwealth, where cosmic mages usually disrupt from camp to camp to enjoy the feasts while they leave their armies unprotected at day during their marches, but we are talking of a continent that does not have cosmic mages. That was my son’s mistake. In marching with them, he inspired his troops and ensured himself of their loyalty, but Taros is composed differently. We need to play our strongest card–the cosmic mages–outright, not hoard it like some secret weapon.”

With every word he’d uttered, Kalia had grown more discontent. Finally, she could not hold back her tongue any longer. “Oil on the genitals, Aevar!” she snapped. He retreated, nonplussed, humored. “You’re simplifying. Strongly. You know Astaros did not march with his troops so he could raise loyalty. Their loyalty was with him for other reasons.” Mainly, because the alternative would have been entrapment and execution by the segregationists. “Astaros marched with them because he was the one loyal to his forces. In the Ancient Lands, during the civil war, cosmic mage battled cosmic mage, so to protect his envoys he had to constantly watch over the host. After all, he was badly outnumbered for most of the strife.”

Aevar smiled again. “I told you. You are a proficient strategist, Kalia. What a waste! I could use a general such as yourself.”

“Tell me about your cosmic envoys.”

He chuckled and moved a step away. “Envoys. Good word. They are my terror squad. We cannot directly disrupt into their cities as we do not own any of the sigils for that region, but I can use the Victorians as shock troops and dismantle their walls for my ground forces to simply march in as I did with Arvengar. The red mages will be forced to rely on their numbers and draw us out on the open field. It will not matter. Our forces are nourished, taught, and more formidably equipped. Can you believe it? After all these years, the tyrants still only entrust bronze into the hands of their warriors.” Aevar barked a laugh. “Even ten to one we would cut through them like razors deleting wool!”

Shit. Kalia thought. He really has a good plan. And these fucking tyrants made it only easier with their backward attitude and their seclusion from the rest of the world!

Taros was the sole country of the civilized world that rejected the intersected trading with other continents that disruptions afforded. They used older portals that couldn’t be tracked, so their vile practices would go unnoticed. It was ironic, for once, long ago Sunfall used to be the world leader in intersected trade. Their economy was brittle, thence. Just like their political stability.

While the Ancient Lands were vibrant, fattened with growing markets and turnover, Sunfall suffered from a recession, rising prices, outbursts of famines, and all the social revolts that came with a despondent rule. War would tilt the axis in the Aurian favor. Like this, he would win, Kalia knew. And once Aevar obtained the largest chunk of the red lands, he would gain access to their libraries untouched from the Age of Rebellion and with that a gigantesque amount of dark energy that he could funnel into his World Temples. He would gain the last electrum mines on Orros and with it, he’d acquire even more resources than he already had. Little would then stop him from going beyond. She could not let that happen. She had promised the One Chosen that she would never let that happen.

The Aurians had sworn off other planets for good reasons.

The words of her peer popped into her head.

“Kalia. You know how he is,” said he, wearing a sorrowful smile. He placed the book in her young hands, and she swallowed deeply at the thump it made, tears trickling atop. “This might find use someday. But never let him get his nails on it. Make sure of it. Make sure of it, Kalia.”

They seemed futile now, all the efforts he had taken to prevent the will of his father and grandfather.

“What say the other conglomerates, Aevar?” asked she.

“What I do on my continent is my business only. And what I do on others, they do not need to know.”

“There’s a lot at stake here,” said Kalia. “You’re risking our greatest asset, the trading alliances with the other continents, and you don’t even want to talk to them?”

He frowned. “Did my son fare this way? No, we are Aurians! It is not our way to consult enemy or friend on when and where to fight.”

🏛️

“You’re absolutely sure?” he asked.

Varion stared out on the slope through the trees and tried to position his thoughts elsewhere. A distant Doomsbane with scaffolded walls and open gates blasted fiery rainbows into the morning air, ribbons hanging over the battlements. Blithely, the city appeared with its emblazoned forays parading since dawn through distant districts and colorful meteors shooting aloft, showering it in a cavalcade of sparks.

“Positive, my friend! Since the first time I saw him. He’s the living afterimage of the Arch Mage. Better even than the bronzes and busts.”

The emissary made a face.

Sparks incinerated next to his head, as Estas built himself up before the picturesque metropolis, that made Varion feel like no other place ever had, and forced his thick eyebrows to clash. It was a look of bafflement but minus the surprise. “If they find out…”

“Who’s going to tell?” Kosartes asked.

After they had presented Varion, the humans had quickly desisted from beleaguering the acropolis and arrived at a different conclusion. It would be more efficient and spare a large number of lives if they changed the commonwealth without taking up arms. They already had one Aurian on their side and if Varion were to work for them as well, more mages would join their cause. They were ready to go public.

In shredded bits and pieces, they discussed his future tutelage, his chance to acquire status, his freedom never to be returned, how Varion had much catching up to do, and what an enormous opportunity it was for the libertarians to have the full-blooded son of a hero on their side. Even if he couldn’t perform magic, being a symbol seemed to suffice.

It was nothing to Varion. He only cared for two things as long as learning was the third. He was almost remorseful now that he hadn’t tried yesterday.

Gnashing his teeth, he controlled the corners of his mouth and looked away from the metropolis towards the philosopher and the emissary. “This must be thought through thoroughly. If we ask for an audience and you are wrong, Kosartes, we will enrage one of the most dangerous men of this planet.”

“You know the King?”

“I’ve read reports.”

With the morning sun at his back, Kosartes drove his hand through his face and beard. “Well, the boy’s right. We ought to wait then.”

Estas sucked on his lip. There was a slight glimmer in his pupils, something akin to hunger. He appeared to be opposed to their decision and yet, if that was the case, he voiced none of it.

Nightfall’s adumbration closed down on them, dying grass and bush in deepest green, but the metropolis lost none of its lurid colors. All of a sudden, it grew unhealthily dark, sort of greenish.

Wait. Varion frowned in confusion. As did the rest of the gathered citizens. What’s going on? Although the sky appeared now to be at sunset, he reminded himself that it was supposed to be a fervent morning. Just a moment before the sun had shined in his face! From each side, his ears overheard prayers.

The rupture above, propelled by a strong quaking of the earth, forced the two mages and the human on their shins. Buckling on his feet, Varion looked around, but nobody assaulted them. The massive golden runes of the city wall now gleamed vigorously, the fireworks no longer booming, as turquoise lightning strafed the walls.

Gazing afar at the metropolis, he witnessed another explosion in the sky.

Varion panicked. He was familiar–or as familiar as one could get with calamities of this sort–and pinned his bird to his chest.

The others ran back into the forest. Kosartes, Estas, and Teophrastos led the people away from the edge. The skies roared.

It was chaos enough. Since he had entered Doomsbane he became more and more attached to these lands, enlaced with whatever ran through them. He knew that if he stayed longer, there would be no way back. He would be consumed by all of it. Especially, with all the planning they had devised for him. This was the best opportunity he would get. So Varion, amid the ensuing cataclysm, took his bird to his chest, ordered it to fly behind him, and stole himself away, jumping off the edge.