Chapter 13 : Handlebars

Mnemon Rhomon, Sorcerer

Realm Year 764, Ascending Wood

Domain of the Silver-Crowned, An-Teng, Satrapy of the Realm

Their stay at the Domain of the Silver-Crowned was characterized by constant observation, having all of their supplies thoroughly inspected, and a choking amount of silence from the locals. Harsh stares on grim, well-lined faces stared out from nearly every angle as they passed through stone archways and over mostly barren fields.

The fields grew a pallid, sparse grain that was watched over by withered men and women. Just like everyone else, their hair was stark white, either naturally so or dyed to be such. A few trees grew in this high climate, and they grew small handfuls of a dry and sad looking fruit still long from proper harvest. 

The village itself seemed to rest in the middle of a broad mountain valley, set between the low point of four mountains with easy passages fortified with great stone walls. It was surrounded by yet another set of walls, and the rest of the valley was given over to a broad expanse of barely-functional fields, cultivated rows of lumber-trees, and mine entrances abuzz with activity. Veritable hordes of brown, red, and black haired children worked in teams to bring hauls of rock and split logs on carts, pulled by thin mules. 

 The village spewed out columns of thick, black industrial smoke from long stone towers, and was surrounded by bramble thickets almost as high as the walls themselves were. The walls were perhaps twenty feet in height, if he were to judge it. 

From his quick glance across the breadth of the valley when they entered, he’d estimate it to be no longer than forty miles and no wider than fifteen. Thought that was a guess that was subject to his faulty vision. 

He should correct that by finally getting a familiar. Something with good eyesight and wings- a bird probably. 

“You will be allowed to stay in the village square, you will not leave it.” Their warrior-escort declared harshly, not looking in their direction. The ram lizard pulled the cart along the bare and cracked roads, the path taking them under the clear path of several watchtowers and leading them to the well-fortified gates of the primary village. “Bread and water will be brought out to you shortly. You will stay for one night and leave at first light. Is this understood?”

“Perfectly, good soldier.” Siata replied with a charming smile. “My companions and I will be perfectly polite guests in your fine walls. I promise this.”

The warrior did not respond, leading them past the gates, another set of towers and internal defenses, and then finally into the town square itself. Like the rest of the territory, it was broadly bare, slightly chilly, and had a distinctly unwelcoming vibe. 

The warrior gestured towards a distinct line of paved stones in the ground of the courtyard. “Within those bounds. You and all of your goods. If you pass it, then you will be considered spies.” 

They moved through, Rhomon’s eye narrowing as he felt for the ambient essence. Anything that might bring harm to them…

…Nothing that he could immediately detect. He pulled the ram lizard to a stop inside the broad circle, stepping off the cart and walking around to the front of the beast. Straps were undone and the beast was freed. Briefly he marveled at how comfortable his boots were.

Marveling done, he brought a hand up to the ram lizard’s face and repeated his hypnosis of the creature, this time given a verbal command. “Rest.” He muttered, hands tracing essence along its broad armored head.

The ram lizard did as it was bid, settling down on its haunches with a dumb lizard expression. Blank and unbothered by the unwelcoming mood of their surroundings. Normally animals wouldn’t dare approach a shadowland, but this beast hadn’t even seemed to notice. A facet of its lacking intelligence or a symptom of his control over it? 

“What is his name?” Shuri asked, stepping around, pulling a warm coat tighter around his shoulders and scratching at the ram lizard’s neck. 

“I don’t know.” Rhomon shrugged in a very obvious manner, before turning to the stern-faced guards that loomed around the edges of the village square, watching them. “May I purchase a bushel of hay and a barrel of water for our beast?” He asked, reaching into his bag and retrieving a jade coin. 

“Food and water will be brought to you, momentarily.” The guard growled firmly and suspiciously, provoking a dry and unimpressed expression from Rhomon. He shrugged and put the coin away, stepping around and to the back of the cart. Their stuff was somewhat disorganized thanks to the thorough rooting that the guards had done at the gates, but nothing was spilled out or destroyed, so it was mostly fine. 

“I’ll prepare a campfire.” Brahm said plainly, reaching into the cart for the bit of firewood and tender and beginning to assemble both on the stone path ground. 

“Sir Rhomon, would you like to continue our lessons on Firetongue?” Shuri asked with a tilt of his scale-freckled head. 

Rhomon considered that for a moment, then nodded. “We’ll practice as I play a game with Siata.” He reached into his personal belongings and withdrew a modest case, stepping over near to the fire and starting to unlatch it. 

“A game?” Siata asked, looking over from the side. The guardswoman he was talking to was glancing off to the side, looking distinctly bored by whatever flirtations he was inflicting upon her. 

“I need to keep my mind sharp on the road, so I brought a Gateway board with me from home.” Rhomon said, setting the multi-tiered board up. Gateway was a strange game, halfway between chess and a wargame. The pieces were genericized but there was also a focus on capturing various points on the board to accumulate beads, beads that were then spent on bringing more pieces onto the board or in improving the movement abilities of any given piece.

It wasn’t a bad game, but the Realm was obsessed with it.

“Oh- Gateway, marvelous!” Siata laughed, sauntering over and settling down on the other end of the board. “If you’re sure you wish to face me, cousin! I don’t mean to boast, but the Ledaal Kes said I had ‘potential’ in a demonstration match!” Siata waggled his eyebrows and buffed his fingernails against his armored vest.

“Oh, you played a match against him too?” Rhomon asked with a raised brow and smile. Ledaal Kes was perhaps the most famous Gateway prodigy currently alive, and engaged in yearly tours to play games against school champions. They were normally pretty quick affairs, because Ledaal Kes was a master playing softball against a bunch of kids for socializing reasons.

“Oh? What did he say about you, cousin?” Siata asked eagerly, scooting forwards and smiling as he started setting up his side of the board. “Hunting Cat or Ox-Dragon?”

Styles of gameplay. “Hunting-Cat.” He nodded. It was the faster of the two most popular styles. “I had prepared for the match a few weeks in advance by looking up his most famous games, memorizing all the openings, and then choosing only moves that weren’t on the list.”

“Hah- really? And what did he have to say about that bold strategy?” Siata grinned conspiratorially.

“He gave me a puzzled look and asked me what the hell I thought I was accomplishing.”

—

“We’ll be coming back with our grandfather, please anticipate us!” Rhomon called out as the gates to the mountain-pass closed behind them. The chilly morning air making his breaths come out as puffs of steam. 

The white-haired warriors practically slammed the gates shut behind them, not bothering to reply to his declaration. He squinted at them with a mild irritation, before huffing and turning around to walk forwards again.

“Quite the steadfast bunch, huh?” Siata commented mildly, brows furrowed and face scrunched. He had volunteered himself to take the reins of the cart, leaving Rhomon free to engage in his other hobbies. He reached forwards and took hold of the back of the cart, hefting himself up and settling down next to his bags. 

Quickly, he retrieved a charcoal pen and his latest notebook, both purchased in An-Teng, and began to draft the plans and occult calculations needed for the next phase of their journey.

“What are you planning, master?” Melia asked sweetly, sliding up to him with the cunning of a woman trying to fetter secrets out of someone. She was significantly more relaxed now that they were past the gates and rolling down the other side of the Firepeak mountains. “And- if you don’t mind me asking of course, what do you mean when you said ‘we’ll be back’ to those guards?” 

She batted her eyes at him in a lovely flutter, which was funny, because all this extra effort was useless on him.

“Our current objective is to go The Lap, retrieve a thoroughly insane old man, escort him back to An-Teng, and allow him to attune to a location and hearthstone to restore his mind.” Rhomon explained plainly, making quick, choppy sketches on blank pages. “But escorting an insane fellow is quite difficult, so I’m drafting up what talismans and potions I'll need to steady his mind.”

He wiggled his hand. “My skills are insufficient to cure him, but I should be able to get him stable enough to be manageable while we move him. A talisman to keep him grounded, and a medication to keep him calm and temperate.”

“Return to An-Teng… Master, in case you remember our terms…” Melia said with a polite, slightly strained smile.

“Siata will pay for your charter to any port if you wish to leave us at The Lap.” Rhomon assured, rounding off his sketch with a few notes, tapping on his forehead with the back of the pen before jotting down a few ideas for base ingredients. A luck charm, a peripet against derangement, a tonic of clear thought… He’d probably need to buy some more distilling tools once they arrive. “You’re under no obligation to follow us back to An-Teng after.”

“Wonderful!” She clapped happily, leaning back before bringing her clasped hands up to her cheeks. “Thank you, master!”

“In the meanwhile- write down all the formulas and their required ingredients and processes that you know.” Rhomon ordered, pulling out a second blank book and shoving it and the charcoal pen into her hands. She fumbled briefly, a glare flashing over her face before it was smothered by the polite mask.

He smiled and squinted. “Do your best!” He said, giving her a thumbs-up and shutting his journal with a ‘thwack!’.” 

“Say, cousin…” Siata asked from the front of the cart, casting half an eye back as they trailed down the rocky slopes. “Were you speaking the truth the other day- that this old man is our grandfather?”

“Hm, well no, but he is an old insane fire dragon.” Rhomon shook his head and corrected himself. “I just said he was our grandfather to keep those white-haired folk from getting all uppity and suspicious about us helping a stranger.”

“I understand, I understand!” Siata replied with a smile, giving a thumbs-up back over his shoulder. “As far as anyone is concerned, he’s our grandfather then!”

“Has no one else tried to aid him?” Brahm asked with furrowed brows, a vaguely offended note growing in his tone. 

“I believe most people think he’s simply some old deranged godblooded, or mendicant holy man.” Rhomon tapped on his chin in thought. “He doesn’t try to steer mortals away from the Immaculate Faith so the local monks mostly leave him alone. He performs minor tricks for those who give him alms, and has been for decades now.”

“A Dragonblooded reduced to such a state…” Siata muttered with a righteous indignation in his voice. “Terribly unjust. Terribly so!” 

Well. The old man wasn’t a Dragonblooded either, but Rhomon wasn’t going to correct his ‘cousin’ anytime soon. “He’s an old and honored elder who has fallen on hard times, so it's only neighborly to help him through it.”

“That he might reward you as well has nothing to do with it?” Brahm asked cynically, raising a brow.

“The greatest reward is getting him healed and active again. The second greatest reward is asking him for whatever books on thaumaturgy he might have.” Rhomon waggled his finger with a smile, provoking a round of laughter from his traveling companions. Even Brahm smirked and rolled his eyes, casting his gaze back out to their surroundings again.

“Is this the purpose of your arrival in An-Teng, sir Rhomon?” Shuri asked curiously, taking an experimental nibble of a bit of jerky purchased in An-Teng. “I recall similar was requested from our lord Father.” 

“Hm? In part, yes.” Rhomon replied, tucking his journal back into his bags and leaning back. “I’m on something of a quest to master as many forms of thaumaturgy and sorcery as I can, in as short order as I can manage. I intend to use it to further my own development.”

He wiggled his finger around. “With craftsmanship, I can produce increasingly fine tools for my work. With enchanting, I can further improve those tools. With alchemy, I can further improve myself. All three of these things feed back into each other. A superior self can produce superior tools, can produce superior enchantments, can produce superior alchemy, which can produce a superior self.”

“Is that your ambition? To perfect yourself and reach the peaks that mortals can attain? If you’re looking to improve your chances of exaltation in the next life, you’d be better off in the Immaculate Halls.” Brahm stated bluntly.

“The Perfect of Paragon took nearly six hundred years to approach the limits of man. A master of the mystic and martial arts, unaging, and wielding great artifacts of a lost age.” Rhomon smiled and closed his eye. “I’ll match him in two years. I’ll surpass him in four.”

Because that was the minimum he’d need to reach to make a difference in the apocalypses to come. He’d need to surpass the most powerful mortal alive in a hundredth of the time. A thirtieth if he was including his entire life up until this point. All the while he’d need to set up and coordinate much more effective heroes to take on problems long before they spiral into unstoppable issues. 

Sometimes he worried that he’d go bald early, with how much stress sat behind his brows. 

“Haha!” I was wondering where you kept your pride, cousin!” Siata laughed at the front of the cart, throwing his head back. “You kept it so well hidden all this time! This arrogance suits you!”

“The Perfect of Paragon?” Shuri asked, blinking twice at the unfamiliar proper nouns. 

“A man who discovered a magical staff five hundred and seventy years ago, or thereabouts.” Rhomon wiggled his hand. “The staff rendered him unaging and immune to most magics, and gave him the ability to bind others to obey his commands if they accepted the initial oath. He’s since cultivated himself to the near-limits of mankind in nearly all fields, and has expanded his realm to nearly two hundred miles across.”

“One of the most peaceful and productive Satrapies of the Realm. I believe a Ragara currently oversees the territory, but it’s been some time since I’ve checked.” Siata commented with a nod. 

Rhomon shrugged. “The same thing that gave him such protection and security to grow is what limits him. His staff makes him immune to nearly all magics, which includes his own. He cannot further himself through alchemy or sorcery any more firedust can burn itself.”

“Where as you can. I see.” Shuri nodded firmly. “That is a grand ambition, sir Rhomon, I will pray for your success.”

“And what do you intend to do with all that power, sorcerer? Say you achieve this, and become great enough to rival even the most senior of Exalted- what will you do then?” Brahm asked, holding up a hand and leaning forwards.

“I thought I already told you this, monk.” Rhomon said with an amused smile, cracking his eye open to glance at the monk. “General errantry and do-goodery. Perhaps with a horse under me, and a faithful hound to follow. Perhaps with a fair few strong guardians to follow me, perhaps with a host of apprentices to watch my projects and follow in my footsteps.”

He waved a hand. “This world desperately needs more heroes in the thresholds. The Realm is protected enough from great dangers by the Legions and the Dragonblooded heroes- but what of the rest of Creation? What of the fledgling southern city that is consumed by the underworld as more and more of their rites drag them into death’s domain? What of the distant eastern tribes that slave to erect pointless monuments to bestial gods? What of the northern tribes who vanish silently in the dark of a blizzard, carried away by wintry fae?”

Rhomon leaned forwards with a frown. “What of the men who are fed opium instead of doles of bread? What of the tribes that are sold to fae and bought back as will-broken husks? What of all those millions of slaves who toil pointlessly with their minds still intact and their backs broken by scar tissue? What of all those little mundane evils that are brushed aside for greater wickedness?”

The cart rolled onwards, the creak of the wooden frame and the clatter of loose stones crushed aside by the wheels was the only sound for a long few moments. 

“You sound quite passionate about these things, sir Rhomon.” Shuri commented after a few moments, bringing his hands together so that the fingertips touched. 

Rhomon smiled and waved dismissively. “I know- that kind of seething doesn’t suit me at all, does it?” He chuckled and leaned back again. “I do a good job of hiding it, I think.”

“That you do, cousin! I had no idea you were so righteously indignant!” Siata commented with a smile, pushing aside a slightly awkward air. “It’s a different side of you than I was used to, I applaud your mask!”

“So you want power to change the world, then?” Brahm asked with a slow nod.

He wanted power to save the world.

“Something like that.” He smiled and nodded, closing his eye. 

“Far more productive than what I was doing in An-Teng, cousin.” Siata complimented. “I was spending my time trying to forge connections with one of our elders- Peleps Galan- Do you know him?”

“I might’ve heard of him once.”

“Yes- well he’s in the favor of the Satrap and a few others, and they were talking about putting me in charge of an expeditionary party if only I proved my worth and brought back something on my own. Can you imagine that cousin? A whole expedition under my command!”

“Mhm.”

“Of course, since you claimed that whole manse as Mnemon property, it wouldn’t count for anything that I brought back- but you’ll help me find another manse won’t you? Just as I helped you?”

“Sure.”

“Ahah- I knew I could rely on you, cousin!”

His cousin was proving to be less insufferable than first impressions implied.