NOVEL NEXT 140 - To the City 3/3 - To the Capital Wall
"The real travails begin?" Archmund asked.
The Terminal Wall of the Capital was tall and imposing. Purple and white stone, gilded accents along the seams, Gemstone conduits running up and down, pulsing with currents of magic. But it was just a wall… wasn't it?
His father grimaced as he opened the window for the guards.
"Reginald Granavale, Fifth Awakening. Escorting my son Archmund, ten years of age."
A moment passed, as the guard consulted something in the booth.
"You're expected, Lord Granavale," the guard said. "If you please…"
His father stepped out of the carriage. "Stay here, Archie."
Archmund obeyed, but his curiosity bade him scooch next to the window.
His father touched his hands to a clear spherical Gem protruding from the wall. He gasped sharply. He stiffened. He leaned back, as if trying to pull away, but was unable.
Archmund saw flickers in the air — shifts in the numen — and changed to his magical sight.
The Gem was sucking power out through his fingers, just an endless gaping void of energy being whisked away at high speeds through the walls, deeper into the city, draining the power from his father. The current was so fast and so devastating that Archmund almost cried in horror, for he would have thought such a powerful flux of magic would strip away its victims' very souls and render them unto death.
But then the Gem released his father, who stumbled back into the carriage, pale, his vitality taken from him.
"I daresay I'm still a good bit stronger than you," his father said jovially. "The Terminal Gate brings people down to the Fourth Awakening."
And where did that power go?
Archmund remembered Mary had told him about a peculiar energy source the Imperial City used for its marvels, an answer she'd gotten from Raehel the Magnificent:
"Frogs. Magic frogs. Magic frogs that are constantly breeding, whose spawn die as tadpoles to supply the city with the necessary life force."
That, Raehel had said, was the secret energy source that powered the Imperial City. Yet he was completely sure he'd seen the city walls drain enough magical power from his father to bring him down an Awakening Level. So was it a lie, or a half truth? Surely there weren't enough nobles casually visiting the city to fuel all of its magical workings on its own.
Or, perhaps, she'd lied to Mary.
But why frogs?
"Are you alright, father?"
"I'm fine, I'm fine," his father said, waving him off. "This isn't even the worst of it!"
"The worst of it," Archmund said uneasily. "You mean to tell me there's more."
"You think they'd let someone at the Fourth Awakening anywhere near the Emperor himself?"
That, he supposed, helped maintain the stability of the Empire. Restrict the number of people who could attain immense supernatural power, and then constrain the ones who did with social incentives and rules.
There was something stifling about the Empire, but he was no fool. He'd seen just how opulent the Elysian Wall and the estates were. Perhaps the perks were worth the chain. He would continue to bide his time.
Archmund kept looking outside as they went deeper into the city. There was a marked and sudden difference once they crossed the walls. Now, it was no longer suburban, but rather high density — modest apartment blocks maybe three stories high. He estimated maybe three or four rooms per floor, so twelve families per building. Not by any means a bad place, but he could see in the distance the rising and reaching towers as they headed even deeper into the city.
Those towers were tall, and cast shadows like mountains. But the distance between the heart of the Imperial City and the far reaches was so vast that the shadows faded, diffused into sun, by the time they landed upon them. Beneath them, along the road, a thick Gem-conduit ran, rainbow iridescent with mingled magics, colors blending to fill the streets with a faint white light.
The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
The streets were clean, though trash swirled against corners; young men and women in faded formalwear gazed at them beadily as they passed; old men and women congregated in corners and squares, playing some indecipherable board game and smoking some unknowable plant. It was a picture of cozy urban integration.
"These are the slums," his father said with disdain.
"The slums," Archmund said with disbelief. He'd thought this place looked more like a safe but lower income area. Not low-income by any means, just lower than city median.
"Don't get me wrong," his father said. "There's not a one of those strangers who doesn't sit at the rank of Subbaron or above. Even the children have a chance at a Microbaron rank, these days, or one of their parents' unlanded vanity titles, bequeathed upon birth. And every one of them holds more wealth than the average commoner will see in a lifetime. But in matters of class and taste? They've less than us. They strive for the heart of the Capital, yet will never stand akin to us."
Archmund shuddered at the misanthropism and yet he wasn't sure he was right to.
"But they're nobility, then," he said.
"Classless as it may be for us to judge the qualifications of other nobility… yes," his father said. "When the average capital citizen thinks of an outskirt noble, they think of these people. We get unfairly painted with the same brush, even though our pedigree stretches back to the Patricians."
Archmund swallowed. He remembered the Patricians coming up in his tutoring lessons, but he'd only heard that they were the founding families of the Empire, from whom all the nobility was descended, the entourage of Alexander Omnio I. They numbered from between five and twelve, depending on the era and tradition, and each was associated with a different domain. Coincidentally, when there were twelve, they were were vaguely styled like the Greco-Roman Twelve Olympians, and so Archmund had dismissed their existence as fabricated Imperial myth-making.
Clearly, that had been a mistake.
"I thought all nobility was descended from the Patricians."
"I've heard rumors that the Arcane University has shown that all humanity is descended from the Patricians, two thousand years after they lived and fought. But we can trace a direct line. Which, if you're interested, I could have you instructed in."
"Why haven't you?" Archmund said. He meant it solely out of curiosity, but his father sighed.
"Amelia."
That all but put an end to the conversation.
Even though his father called the place a slum, there was no crime, barely any poverty, and no real danger. And then they came to a second wall.
"The Capital Wall," his father said. "That separates the capital proper from… the rabble."
"Have we not been in the capital proper?"
"Surely you can guess my answer to that by now."
Archmund chuckled bitterly. His father joined him.
He rolled down his window.
"Reginald Granavale. Fifth Awakening. Escorting my son Archmund."
The guards nodded. Again, his father stepped out of the carriage and touched his hands to a clear spherical Gem. Again, the numen warped and twisted and became disturbed, as the Gem stole his vital force, draining it to fuel the heart of the city.
Archmund looked away. His father stepped back in, and the gates of the city creaked open to allow their carriage through.
"What have you been reduced to?" Archmund said, turning back to face his father.
"Third Awakening," his father said. "Barely stronger than you."
"I'm surprised," Archmund said. "That these drains are enough to bring you so low."
His father was pale, breathing heavily, slouching so harshly it was as if he melted into the seats of the carriage. Yet even though the Lord Reginald Granavale looked deeply and greatly diminished, he still brimmed with a vitality far greater than anyone else Archmund had ever seen.
"I assure you, this is nothing you need to worry about."
The Lord Reginald Granavale was still equivalent to a man at the Third Awakening, and that meant, now that Archmund's magic sight had been forged in the chthonic power of a Dungeon and enhanced by Gemmy, that he was still among the strongest beings Archmund had ever seen. The sense of reassurance and strength that emanated from him wasn't a mere artifact of parenthood, it was a tangible manifestation of his magical prowess. Even so diminished, he was still among the strongest warriors Archmund had ever seen, easily equivalent to the Princess or Raehel, which made it all the more disturbing that he'd done so very little to manage the Dungeon, leaving the tasks to Archmund.
"Is there more?" Archmund said. "Or is that the extent of it?"
"Oh, everywhere," his father said. "Every storefront. Every social club. Every theater. You can't walk a hundred feet in this city without needing to donate your magic. But beyond that, the Royal Gate brings those that pass it down to the level of Attunement," his father said. "Able to draw on the ambient magic of the world to cast Enchantments and Skills, but largely depleted of their own power. Can't have any threats to the Imperial Family in the palace."
"You visit the palace often?"
"When I feel the Emperor can make the time," Reginald said. "It isn't easy, getting what support we can. But it was a miraculous omen when the Crown Princess herself deigned to grace Granavale."
So any who tried to get an audience with the Emperor were reduced down to Attunement.
He could sense magic with a certain insight now, an intuition he hadn't possessed before the Merchant of the Damned had temporarily suppressed his connection to his Gems. There wasn't any white-gold net binding his father, no tangling threads stopping his use of magic or his further manifestation. The hunger of the Imperial Capital was just that — a drain on any nobility, meant to sap as much of their power as it could in one great blow, a cost continually demanded for participation in polite society. It would take a great power to regenerate their magic faster than it took to participate in society.
There was possibly the social recluse solution, where one secluded themselves in order to regenerate magic quickly before infiltrating and dominating the city — but no. The Empire had secret police. They would know, if someone entered the capital proper and then hoarded their magic.
Everything Archmund saw made it seem like the very architecture of the capital itself had the nobility in a vice grip of mediocrity. If this was the cost of high society, he wondered if he was willing to pay it.
And one other thing was true. If he met Angelina in the palace, he would be reduced to the level of Attunement.
That scared him deeply.