Hope

“You know, there might be an opportunity to show you something today,” Elizabeth broached as they were taking a break. It was the following day and they had seemingly resumed the old training schedule of spending most of their time improving at magic. Not that Irwyn minded at all.

“If you think it’s something worth seeing I am not opposed,” he raised an eyebrow. “Though I am not sure what brought this on.”

“There has been… a reassignment of priorities happening across the Duchy of Black,” she explained. “Recent events of large scale have led to a lot of very qualified people leaving the city on assignments and such things. Some protocols regarding how much of the city operates had undergone changes. It is in big part why the investigation of the attack has dragged on so much: The best mages have been busy with things that took priority.”

“Higher priority than an attack on a military establishment?” Irwyn raised an eyebrow.

“Yes,” Elizabeth nodded. “I am sworn not to overshare, sorry, however, there has been increasing demand for the best the Duchy has at its disposal over the past few months. And today a few things have come together which allows for an opportunity.”

“The opportunity is there being fewer excellent mages present?”

“None, to be exact,” Elizabeth nodded. “Though obviously keep it to yourself, Dervish would currently be the strongest mage in Abonisle by a significant margin. The city is naturally remains well defended - the magical arrays are still some of the best in the duchy - but it does now rely a bit more on the illusion of it being foolish to try something serious.”

“Are people on the top not worried about the mysterious attacker?” Irwyn frowned. “What if they act again.”

“Such worries had been raised,” Dervish answered from the side instead. “And they were ultimately dismissed as a secondary priority. All irreplaceable assets have been secured. If attempts are made against more strategic targets this would, of course, be reevaluated. The Temporal beacon allows for rapid reinforcements.”

“I remember quite clearly that when one fool attempted to steal from house Blackburg in Ebon Respite, who knows how many mages had been sent to claim retribution. This response seems… lax in comparison,” Irwyn shared his thoughts.

“You misunderstand,” Dervish simply shook his head. “Hundreds of mages have been reassigned, some brought back from vacation or even retirement precisely in preparation for another possible attack or to look for the culprits, many times that of what had happened in Ebon Respite. However, just like then, all these mages are of middling power at best. Few could even feasibly threaten you two in perfect circumstances. What Abonisle currently lacks are the strategic assets that usually lodge here.”

“Does that make you one then? A strategic asset.”

“Of course,” Dervish nodded, not even missing a beat.

“This has gone far away from the point,” Elizabeth interceded, changing the topic. “The reason why I bring this up, Irwyn, is because previously there had been places where I simply could not bring you because there were mages who would inevitably notice you and question why you were there. And we couldn’t be sure something problematic would not rise from it. However, now…”

“It is no longer an issue,” Irwyn finished the sentence. And, well, only one clearly restricted area with a concentration of the best mages came to mind. “You mean to bring me to the Spires.”

“Yes,” she nodded seriously, though there was also a trace of nervousness. “There is something I really wanted to show you and the weather is finally good enough to see it. Will you come with me?”

“Of course,” Irwyn nodded and extended his hand. Elizabeth smiled before she reached forward, whisking them both away.

The next moment Irwyn stood in a circular hallway made of solid gray metal. There was a bit of magical light and slight, even curvature but that was about all the decoration present. In one direction he thought he heard the whistling of wind though it could be something else, the experience was slightly… disorienting.

“This way,” Elizabeth moved past him as he regained his wits, heading towards the humming. She seemed to be almost skipping in anticipation.

Naturally, Irwyn followed, jogging to keep up. The whistling grew louder and Irwyn realized they were not just moving in a large circle, they were also going up. Like a long ramp with a small incline shaped like a spiral.

“Is this all steel?” Irwyn had to ask, the colour didn’t seem quite right though. Assuming even part of the Spires were like this, that was a lot of metal. It was all empowered by some kind of enchantment woven seemingly into the entire building as far as Irwyn could feel and saturated with a lot of mana but he felt no enchantment anchored directly in the material.

“No, tungsten,” Elizabeth said as if it was completely normal. Wasn’t tungsten an order of magnitude rarer than even steel?

Not that Irwyn had that much time to ponder this as when not even a minute had passed he saw from up ahead the hint of natural light and a dozen steps further noticed the wide stairway, leading straight up. Elizabeth waited for him the second it took to catch up, smiling as they walked the steps together.

Immediately, Irwyn noticed that there was no ceiling above. The steps led into a completely open space. And an inkling quickly proved correct as they stepped into the open and Irwyn noticed the sheer extent of the open scenery in front of him.

He could see maybe a hundred kilometers ahead. A seemingly endless scenery spreading right before his eyes. He thought he was probably looking south at the moment, mostly based on a group of four particularly recognizable large hills. A road was sprawling across forests and clearings all the way to the horizon. The same way he had come less than a month ago. Oh, and how Irwyn had changed in that time. He tried to spot where the kobold attack had taken place but everything was so small. How high were they? Even the city with its towering structures seemed so far below.

“You know, that is probably the least interesting direction,” Elizabeth chuckled from right next to him. That helped bring him more to the present. He rose his head and looked at their more immediate surroundings. They were, indeed, standing on the top of one of the Spires; the great towers above Abonisle. The roof they stood on was large and circular, he would guess some 50 meters in diameter, all of it built from a seemingly thick layer of tungsten. Moreover, there was a massive circle carved into the metal, taking up good three-quarters of the roof; and it was probably perfect if Irwyn had to guess.

He had read about what might be its use: There were spells somewhere between enchantment and direct casting that allowed for multiple mages to cooperate while binding their magic to physical formations; mostly in the cases of exceptionally difficult spells as far as Irwyn understood. It was not something Irwyn had studied and had not actually seen with his own eyes at least as far as he knew. He did, however, know that geometric and other shapes played a role in that.

Then he looked at the other two roofs which were far less empty. There were, after all, three Spires. From down below he had never noticed that there was massive machinery at the top of one of them; it had just been too far away. At the moment he could see it perfectly well though and the creation was… a mesmerizing construction of thick metal circles. Not just tungsten of steel but countless colors, almost every single one having a metallic sheen in the sunlight. That being said there was a clear preference for various black or grey materials such shades taking up a good 3/4ths of the mysterious formation.

And it was a strange creation indeed. Irwyn struggled to find words to describe it as it was unlike anything he had ever beheld. It was… like a madman’s drawing - hundreds of rings stacked next to one another, somehow mesmerizing to behold - yet the circles were each identical in size, geometrically perfect, and physically floated. Levitated at various heights above ground.

“It’s called the Proud Eye,” Elizabeth noticed what Irwyn had been staring at for probably too long.

“What can it do?” Irwyn could hardly tear his gaze away. Were the circles inscribed with letters or were his eyes fooling him? They were so small but there was something on the surface. Perhaps only Kalista would have been able to tell from this distance.

“Many things,” Elizabeth beamed. “But it is mainly a weapon. ‘For as far as the Eye can see, it is its domain and its domain alone. Woe be to they who dare trespass uninvited’. If you look at the bottom you can see the crystalline focus,” and indeed, there was a pitch-black shape sticking out of the ground there, just barely. Irwyn had not noticed it before since it was mostly obscured. And also because he could not actually see it, Irwyn realized. It was completely antithetical to light to the point he could not see it reflecting. He only saw the utter lack of reflected light in its place.

“It’s bigger than it looks, quite literally,” Elizabeth continued her explanation. “When the Eye is needed it can be rearranged into the exact right tool. I hardly know myself everything it can actually do.”

“Fascinating,” Irwyn nodded. It brought back a certain memory. He wasn’t sure how he felt about remembering that kobold attack twice in a few minutes. Then his eye wandered over to the last Spire. He stared at the thing and stared and stared. Then he looked away.

“What…” a question he had wanted to ask died on his lips. What had he been staring at? It had been… vaguely rectangular. But what more was there to it? It felt just out of reach. A memory that he could just about not grasp. His neck moved right back to gazing at it.

“Careful!” Elizabeth called out with sudden distress. Irwyn looked her way and realized he could not turn quite right, something blocked the motion. Then he realized there was a wall to his left. No… that was the ground. He began to reorient himself and realized he was lying down on a construct of soft Flames that had cushioned his fall. He did not remember falling.

“How can you be this reckless?” Elizabeth was kneeling next to him, Irwyn quickly surmised. He had no idea since when.

“What happened?” he asked, sitting up. Too quickly, it turned out. A spike of pain ran through his head and he hissed. Then he felt there was blood running down his face. Tears of blood, to be precise.

“What do you…” she half shouted, then suddenly quieted down. She stared at Irwyn’s genuine confusion when a realization seemingly struck her. “Do you really have no idea?”

“Not the slightest clue,” he nodded. Looking back at her words, she seemed certain this had been his fault. Perhaps a mistake made in ignorance, whatever it was that actually happened.

“You tried too hard to see, Irwyn,” she sighed. “I am sorry, I thought you knew. I would have warned you otherwise,” she waved her hand and a… bracelet appeared in her hand. She started to fiddle with it while continuing the conversation.

“I looked too hard?” It was not quite clicking, though Irwyn could almost taste it on the tip of his tongue. His mind still felt sluggish.

“Yes, at something that your brain physically could not withstand,” she nodded. “It can happen -when you behold magic that your soul believes it can understand but is too far beyond what the mortal body can withstand. The soul may try to forcefully close that gap in ability and comprehension with disastrous results if not stopped. It’s such a common condition among talented mages that I was sure you had also gone through it hundreds of times,” she sighed and waved the bracelet in front of Irwyn’s face. He felt… the tears of blood disappear, cleaned away.

“Thank you. No, I haven’t at least as far as I know, certainly nothing like this,” Irwyn sighed. “But I assume you have.”

“Yes,” she nodded. “The academic name for the effect is Inheritor’s fever. I have suffered from it as long as I can remember. It is… better now, however, when I was very young it had been… awful.”

“Do you want to talk about it?” Irwyn encouraged her to continue.

“I was born in the ancient seat of magic, City Black, and it is there I spent most of my youth,” to his surprise, Elizabeth did, slowly. She was quieter than usual, her face soured by a painful recollection. “That city is so full of magic; in every corner, nook and cranny. I don’t know how to give it justice but magic is genuinely everywhere in City Black. You cannot find a room where it is not present and readily beheld. But how could a child’s mind possibly grasp that? My earliest memories are of being bedridden and sickly. I think I had barely left the bed a scarce few times before I turned eight. It was that year that finally someone thought that perhaps this might be the cause of my mysterious sickness that had baffled every healer and physician money or influence could bring. After all, the Inheritor’s fever was known to manifest in the early teens at the earliest after those particularly talented had begun their journey as novice mages. An enchantment was quickly commissioned and it made me better. I trained hard and when I was twelve, I could finally live normally without it most of the time. But sometimes I still feel it: The beginning of a familiar headache that warns me to look away.”

“That is awful and a travesty that you were not helped sooner,” Irwyn frowned then tried to bring her thoughts away from it. “I suppose I had the opposite problem. In Ebon Respite, there was next to no magic. Anything that ever reached the city were leftovers, quadruply so for the slums. I don’t remember my earliest years so I cannot know if I have ever run into anything like that. Maybe I haven’t or maybe I just didn’t make the connection.”

“Yes, I should have realized you would not have been exposed there,” Elizabeth sighed. “Enchantments that tend to cause the Fever are also often made with shielding in mind; mostly things above a certain level of power. It also depends on the element. You might have gone by a dozen Void magic formations that simply cannot trigger such a reaction because of your affinity to Light - Like the Dredge and the Eye, you had no reaction to it because why would your Soul attempt to forcefully understand Void magic? The shielding is not done for everything though. Not the weakest and most rudimentary things and especially not for things that need to work at the best efficiency possible.

“Like in this case,” Irwyn surmised, pointing in the approximate direction of the third spire. He did not quite dare look again yet.

“Yes,” Elizabeth nodded. “The Spires are specifically warded so that no one can accidentally spot the top from below but at the core of it, adding any such protections would likely reduce its efficacy and make it far easier to tamper with while doing so. Or maybe the creator had just not thought it was a necessary feature.”

“Well, you still have not told me what it actually is,” Irwyn was nodding along.

“I… have?” Elizabeth looked at him, uncertain and confused.

“I am fairly sure you have not?” Irwyn replied though her confusion led to his own uncertainty.

“Oh,” she suddenly nodded to herself. “You might have just been too engrossed with it to notice.”

“That is possible,” Irwyn returned the nod. Then waited for Elizabeth to repeat the information.

Which she did not. Elizabeth just kept staring at him with an unchanged confused expression. And Irwyn really wasn’t sure what to do so he waited for a bit longer. As the seconds stretched on it began to feel uncomfortable. He wasn’t sure what was going on so he took a deep breath to speak and…

“Hah, got you,” Elizabeth burst out laughing. “You make such a face when you have no idea whether to speak or wait. That’s what you deserve for earlier,” she stared at Irwyn’s flabbergasted face for a second more with a smile and a chuckle and then actually explained. “It is nothing less than the singular greatest artifact in Abonisle, and I don’t say that lightly, though despite that it is no secret. In fact, it is known the world over. What stands over there is the Temporal Beacon.”

“The thing that allows teleportation to be far easier in Abonisle?” Irwyn asked to confirm. He had, in fact, heard of it.

“Exactly,” Elizabeth nodded.

“And it just… stays there?” he took a glance at it. When he looked away a second later, he could barely recall anything but it didn’t seem that tall or big. Or secure for that matter. “Couldn’t it be sabotaged or even stolen?”

“That is an incorrect assumption,” Elizabeth shook her head. “I am no Time mage but I know the basics. The Beacons are part of a larger network containing exactly 17 nodes. 2 for each duchy except Teal which only has one, however, it is the commanding Beacon that maintains the whole thing. And they are a wondrous thing: Teleporting between two cities with a beacon is borderline free if the enchantments are done right and anyone teleporting here or from here will still save massively on any mana they would expend, even bending Finity to a great degree.”

“I had no idea it was so powerful,” Irwyn nodded. “Still, this only leaves more reason to not leave it outside of a vault under perpetual guard.”

“It does not need to be guarded because it cannot be removed or damaged Irwyn,” those words were full of wonder as they passed Elizabeth’s lips. “You see, the beacons are far more than just artifacts. They were created only once and never reproduced. No one has ever come close in fact. You see, these were created by the very first Duke of Teal, the Named Twinpresence. One of the nine Dukes who rose to overthrow the Tyrant, one of the five Named among them.”

“It is documented beyond dispute that 238 years after the Federation was founded, Twinpresence was mortally wounded by a Named Lich in a battle of mutual destruction, making him the second of the five Named Dukes to perish after the Duke of Wrath. He had been injured in such a way that his soul was coming apart at the seams. Decaying and splintering. Beyond saving but not quite dead yet, Twinpresence gathered almost all of the greatest soul mages in the Federation at the time and worked with them on a final project. In the end, his soul was split seventeen fold after all the corruption was cut off. With the last remnants of his decaying will, Twinpresence called upon an Edict to create a true eternal heritage. To this day, the Federation prospers from the determination the mage held in those final moments.”

“Incredible,” Irwyn released a deep breath. He had been a bit engrossed. “The very essence of a Named mage, and self-sacrificial as well to empower the meaning. No wonder you are not wary. I would not be surprised if you told me other Named didn’t have the power to break it.”

“Not quickly in any case,” Elizabeth smiled. “There had been attempts, mostly by Liches, however, the network retains the slightest remnant of sentience and warns the others when in danger. Without exception, reinforcements were quick to come and stop any such intentions.”

“And I assume that stealing is not exactly mortally possible,” Irwyn nodded along. He almost took another glance at it but stopped himself. Better to not push it.

“It is fixed in place here, or at least that is what the explanation was for those without talent for Time magic. If Abonisle was moved by an earthquake - discounting that the Void lake makes that impossible - or the Spire fell it would remain in exactly the same spot as it is right now. The Duke of Teal had come personally to install it when it had been moved here. It had actually been placed years before the Spires themselves were built.”

“It was not in another settlement before?” Irwyn raised an eyebrow. He remembered that Duchess Avys was partial to Abonisle, however, he couldn’t imagine that any settlement with such a beacon had been mundane.”

“The previous city had been mostly depopulated by the Lich war 17 years ago. The Duchess used that as an opportunity.”

“I have to admit, it sound incredibly impressive even though I hardly have any way to experience it first hand,” beyond teleporting around that is. “Is this what you wanted to show me?”

“In part, but there is one more thing,” she nodded. “Frankly I am surprised you haven’t noticed yet.”

“Really?” Irwyn looked around. There were only three spires so it probably wasn’t that unless he missed something right next to him. So instead, he tried looking into the distance. At the forests and hills around Abonisle stretching far and wide…

Until he turned around and saw a complete and drastic change in scenery. Now he understood why Elizabeth thought he would see it sooner considering the sight took up basically a whole cardinal direction. It was just that the stairs and the spires were built at such an angle that his eyes had not wandered this way before, far too focused on the magic right by him.

What Irwyn beheld now was a progressive descent into a frozen wasteland. Some twenty or such kilometers North of Abonisle grass receded and the moderate weather almost spontaneously became a tundra. Spots of greenery peeked from beneath the snow which only became thicker and thicker until there was only white. No shapes, no color, just an endless, indiscriminate permafrost stretching all the way to the horizon.

Except there was no horizon. There was only distant monotone gray. It took Irwyn a few moments to shake off the surprise and realize what it was: Rock. A sheer cliff, ground down by eons until it was too sheer for even snow to settle. Irwyn couldn’t see the mountain ranges peak while the bottom was below the horizon, so tall they were. And it stretched literally from East to West. No obvious change along all that distance. No shorter in any one spot. No matter how far away Irwyn looked, the entire horizon was entirely taken by a gargantuan wall of sheer rock taller than the clouds.

“I also have no idea how in the world I missed that,” Irwyn admitted, mouth slightly agape. “What in the world even is that?”

“The mountains at the Federation’s Northern border,” Elizabeth stood by him and grinned. “I told you that you should see it from up here back when we first met. Well, it wouldn’t do not to show you.”

“It is a view, alright,” Irwyn had to admit. “I read in a book somewhere that the ‘Divide’ mountain range is a group of tall mountains at the border. That might genuinely be the biggest understatement I have ever seen.”

“Yeah, people get really surprised by it, even from pictures that hardly capture it,” she nodded. “It’s probably because of how hard it is to actually see it. Nine out of ten days there are magical snowstorms raging from dawn to dusk, worse the closer you get; so you cannot see halfway to the mountains. The only reason the snow is not as tall as the Spires is because it is purely magical and therefore eventually disappears in accordance with Finity.”

“I had no idea we even had magical storms,” Irwyn admitted.

“It’s because of the drastic change in the environment,” Elizabeth replied. “The levels of ambient mana beyond the mountain are drastically lower. The Federation is the holy land of mages, or so I have heard. The rock keeps all that mana on our side instead of spilling over, however, apparently magic still gets greatly upset by that emptiness; even with the physical barrier in between. That causes the storms. If you want to know more, you will need a scholar.”

“I think the basic principle is plenty for now,” Irwyn nodded and stared back into the distance. It remained strangely breathtaking. Silence descended on them for a good dozen seconds.

“Irwyn?” Elizabeth broke it, hesitantly.

“Yes?”

“Would you mind standing here like this for a while?”

“Not at all.”