Chapter Text

Ozzalus felt his spell boundary shudder, but not give, as the air around him changed. His eyes were closed. A bad habit, but it helped him focus while casting, and he found it unpleasant to see the sudden change in his surroundings during a port. He opened his eyes.

Ellarion was looking around frantically, eyes flitting back and forth between a spot on the floor and his dowsing compass.

The receiving room was empty, save for the two of them. The room was padded like a sanitarium cell, in case a port failed to compensate for momentum from a different latitude, and there was no furniture, to minimize the risk of intersection. There was also no star.

“Ell,” Ozzalus asked, trying to keep his voice calm. “What happened?”

“I-” Ellarion hesitated. “I don’t know.”

It was odd, Ozzalus thought, to hear those three words in Ell’s voice. “Did I make a mistake in the porting?”

“You didn’t. The bridge was clean, as was the severance.”

“Something with the targeting, then? I made the boundary as tight as possible to minimize the entropic cost. Perhaps I misjudged the star’s position?”

“You know as well as I do that your sense of space is impeccable.” Ellarion’s eyes were on his compass, but they weren’t reading anything in particular.

Ozzalus put a hand on his shoulder. “Ell,” he said. “We did nothing wrong. It’s an anomalous object, your measurements confirmed that. Most likely, it had some unforeseen interaction with my spell.”

“This was a mission from the Archmagister himself!”

“He’ll understand. There’s nothing for it, we’ll have to tell him that the star resisted the porting somehow. I’ll prepare a different spell as quickly as I can, and we’ll go back and get it.”

“All right. I… I’ll go tell him. You focus on memorizing your spell.”

“Are you sure?” Ozzalus was surprised that Ell had volunteered to deliver the bad news.

“Yes. I’m a divinator. Communication should be my responsibility.” Ellarion looked at Ozzalus, his expression suddenly firm, and walked to the door.

Ozzalus didn’t object. Ell could get annoyingly stubborn about this sort of thing, but in this particular case he didn’t mind. He hated reporting to the Archmagister as much as Ell did.

He opened his spellbook and pondered what spell would be best for retrieving the star. If noncontinuous porting didn’t work, and it was too heavy to be carried through a Gate, perhaps a continuous warp? Ozzalus was the sort of person who worked well under pressure; he had little difficulty pushing the Archmagister and the consequences of failure out of his mind. He was nearly done with the memorization when Ellarion returned.

“You took a while,” Ozzalus said, not looking up from his spellbook.

“He… he recommended retirement, if we fail again.”

Ozzalus recited a few final mnemonics in his mind and then closed his spellbook. “Then we’d better not fail, I suppose.”

“You’re done already?”

“I am the best dimensionalist in the Collegium.”

“Save for the Archmagister.”

“Save for him. Ready to go?”

“No. But we must.”

Ozzalus kept his eyes open this time. He and Ellarion arrived in the crater, exactly where they’d left.

The star wasn’t there.

Ozzalus blinked. Still not there. He waved his hand through the spot where the star had been…

Wait. Something wasn’t right. Something was off about his memory of the star’s position.

“Ell,” he said, “do you remember where the star was?”

Ellarion was sitting in the dirt with his head in his hands. He didn’t respond.

Ozzalus shook him. “Ell. Where was the star, exactly.”

Ellarion spoke quietly. “The geometric center of the crater. Obviously.”

Ozzalus knew distances, and he remembered them. When he’d tried to port to the receiving room with Ell and the star, he hadn’t targeted the exact center of the crater. He’d targeted a space twelve centimeters to the north of it. Where the star had been. He explained this to Ellarion.

“When I took my measurements, the star was at the exact center of the crater.”

So the star moved.

Or it had appeared to. While Ozzalus’s attention had been split between spell preparation and arguing with Ell. And neither of them noticed.

“Illusionry,” Ozzalus said.

Ellarion nodded. “That’s the only explanation. Illusionry. Optical illusionry. A subfield of kinetics…”

Realization seemed to dawn on both of them at once.

“You don’t think-”

“It couldn’t have been-”

“It was the kid,” Ozzalus concluded. “Remember when you asked him if he was a kineticist? He didn’t actually answer, did he?”

“Veritic spells don’t detect literal truth or falsehood. They measure physiological signs and use those to estimate deceptive intent.”

“But some kid who got his hands on a kinetics spellbook wouldn’t know that. And how clean was the reading, really?”

“Three to two odds in favor of sincerity. Or three parts sincerity to two parts deceptiveness, depending on how you interpret it. I… I thought he was just nervous. You’d have be a really good liar to pull off that kind of reading otherwise.”

Ozzalus sighed. “Well, he’s a very good liar.”

“You’re always telling me that I’m too paranoid. I felt silly, grilling a child.”

“I know. I don’t blame you. Neither of us were at our best. It was two in the morning. We wanted to get it over with. On any other day, I would have noticed the change in the star’s position, or you would have done a thorough check for illusionry before we left.”

“You’re right, this is my fault. As a divinator, it’s my job to make sure nothing slips past-”

“That’s not at all what I was trying to say.”

For a few minutes, neither mage said anything. The crater was vast, but it felt claustrophobic, now, as if its curved walls were rising up to envelop them.

It was Ellarion who broke the silence. “We’ll tell the Archmagister everything, and hope for leniency.”

Ozzalus shook his head. “We can’t tell him that we were duped by a ten-year-old hedge mage. He’ll retire both of us if we do.”

“He says all the time that he is fair to those who are honest with him. He has this whole game-theoretic thing about it, remember? Calculated incentives?”

“That’s just something he says. If we tell the truth, we’ll definitely at least lose our positions. On the other hand, we’ve just been reminded of how unreliable veritic spells are. On balance, I think the risk is worth it.”

Ellarion looked away. “If you say so. I trust your judgement more than mine, in situations like this.”

The two of them discussed their story, and how they would present it. Then Ozzalus ported them back. He walked into the Archmagister’s office first, Ellarion close behind. The office was a cozy place, with plush furniture and a fireplace set into one wall.

The Archmagister was standing behind his desk, rather than sitting, which was a bad sign. His eyes were soft and understanding.

“It must be some property of the star itself,” Ellarion began. “Ozzalus’s porting was flawless. When we returned, the star was gone, so it must have disappeared somehow in transit. I won’t claim to understand how, but from my measurements--”

“You’re lying,” the Archmagister said, gently, as if chiding a child. “I understand. Your situation must be very stressful. Nevertheless, please do not lie to me.”

Ozzalus evaluated the Archmagister. His hands were spread in a placating gesture, holding no divinometer of any kind. This was another one of his mind games; he didn’t actually know that Ell was lying. Ozzalus cleared his throat; he had to cover for Ell before he fell for it--

Ellarion spoke first, quickly and firmly. “I wouldn’t lie to you.”

“Why must you break my trust in this way?” The Archmagister said, sounding genuinely hurt. “I try to be patient, but I must draw the line somewhere. Ellarion, you will retire.”

Ozzalus’s eyes widened. “It wasn’t his fault, it was mine, I should have noticed--”

The Archmagister silenced him with a cutting gesture. “It is admirable of you to try to protect your colleague, Ozzalus. I shouldn’t encourage it, but I am too soft for my own good. I will not punish you, as of yet.”

“He’s the best divinator the Collegium has! Now that we’ve lost the star, you need him more than ever.”

“You know our retirement procedure as well as I do. Ellarion’s talents will not go to waste. Do not try me, Ozzalus. You may leave.” The Archmagister sighed. His voice was heavy with regret as he addressed Ellarion. “You, on the other hand, I can no longer trust.”

Ozzalus hesitated, and then left. He sat in the receiving room and waited for his friend. He could do that much, at least.

There was no sound from the Archmagister’s office. No raised voices, no hushed conversation, no shuffling of feet. Ozzalus remembered his first time there, all those years ago. “Don’t worry, nobody will hear us here,” the Archmagister had said. “I value the privacy of my students. You can tell me anything; none of it will leave this room.” Ozzalus had found it reassuring at the time.

He briefly considered rescuing Ellarion. He was a dimensionalist, after all; he could be in and out in seconds. Without time to prepare, another port would cost him years of study, but that was a small price to pay-

No. He had to cut off those thoughts before they grew. Thoughts like that were the reason Ell was being retired. How could he have been such a fool? How could he have thought they could fool the Archmagister? He’d grown complacent after so many years in the Archmagister’s favor.

Some time later, Ellarion came out, cradling his dowsing compass with both hands. Its innumerable needles, counters, meters, and wheels moved to and fro, but Ellarion’s eyes weren’t tracking them. They were vacant. Lost. Confused.

“What’s Beizs’ Theorem, Ell?” Ozzalus asked him.

Ellarion frowned. “Which theorem?”

“That’s not a funny joke, Ell,” Ozzalus said, disbelieving. “Let’s try something else. Repeat after me: expected value is the sum of possible values multiplied by their probabilities.”

“Expected something… something about a sum?”

“Expected value is the sum of possible values multiplied by their probabilities,” Ozzalus repeated.

“I didn’t catch that. You’re not speaking clearly, I think.” Ellarion sounded uncertain. “Is something wrong?”

Ozzalus took the divinometer from Ellarion’s hands. It continued to move, measuring a thousand thousand things.

~~~

I surveyed the crater again, squinting past the light. Sure enough, the mages were well and truly gone. I didn’t know if they would get help from the Collegium, or if there were other dimensionalists capable of porting across long distances. I had to work quickly.

So I ran to the center of the crater and scooped up the star in my bag. I did my best not to touch the star directly; my father had taught me to avoid contact with exotic materials, both for safety and to minimize contamination. If I had a sterile container, I would have used that, but I hadn’t prepared one.

As soon as the star was secure, I began Levitate-leaping back toward town.

I lamented the conditions of this discovery. In an ideal world, I would have done testing on-site, or at least collected soil samples from the crater. But the most important thing now was to get the star back to the laboratorium.

When I reached the town wall I weighed the risks of continuing to use Levitate. I decided against it. Leaping across rooftops in the black of night was a little dangerous, and carrying a glowing bag home would be a little dangerous, but leaping across rooftops with a glowing bag would be unexplainable. If someone saw me walking home, I could make up something about a problem with my glowlamp. Nobody here knew enough alchemistry to see through that ruse.

Thankfully, not even Timmon was out by this hour, and I made it home without incident. I allowed myself to relax a little as I descended into the laboratorium. The room was encased in layers of Phyrridae mesh, outside the anechoic stone, which would protect against most divinometry. I didn’t really understand how it worked. Even if the mesh blocked divinometry from outside, couldn’t a divinator simply find the mesh itself? Supposedly the layers were intertwined in a way that protected each other, and there was no “outermost” mesh, but that seemed topologically impossible.

I shook my head to clear it. I tended to get caught up in questions like that, sometimes, things that I didn’t understand yet. Thankfully, I had more pressing questions to distract myself with.

First I performed a more thorough spectrographic analysis. The equipment here wasn’t very portable, but I could use it without relying on spellcraft. My measurements were consistent with the initial spectrogram I’d taken from afar. However, there was one oddity. The star emitted light of varying intensities across all parts of the spectrum I could measure, including infrared, but it appeared to emit absolutely zero heat. Somehow, the light from the star didn’t heat things up when it was “absorbed.”

Next I measured its weight. Weights. It had no single consistent weight, which gave me a chuckle, because that meant the divinator’s measurements at the crater held some truth. The star’s weight didn’t fluctuate, but it seemed to depend on altitude, far more than normal matter, to the point where there was a measurable difference if I weighed it near the ceiling, as opposed to near the floor. My scales and force gauges weren’t precise enough for me to extrapolate a curve, but I suspected that at some height beyond the first celestial sphere, the star’s weight would be zero.

I took other measurements, thermal conductivity and voltaic charge and so forth, but I found little else that surprised me. A lot of zeros, which was interesting, but didn’t give me much to work with.

I couldn’t bring myself to test toughness or hardness. For all I knew the thing would shatter.

~~~

The next few days passed uneventfully. More tests, restudying optics, repreparing Levitate, sleeping at odd hours. The extent that I’d overdrawn on optics knowledge was a little worrying. My intuitions seemed intact, and I had little trouble relearning what I’d lost, but distribution of holes in my memory suggested that I might have lost a little from other fields as well. Overdrawing is rarely clean, after all. I reassured myself with the knowledge that it wasn’t permanent. Gaps from spellcasting could always be refilled, it was just a matter of time, I was nothing if not studious.

I also worried about the Collegium. I was tempted to hole myself up in the laboratorium, since their mages could appear at any moment, but that would attract attention from the townsfolk. Instead, I spent some time each day at the Lifted Spirits. Despite being the only tavern in town, it wasn’t very busy, but there was enough chatter in the evenings that I could have an ear to the ground there.

It was on one of these evenings that a group of redeyed mercenaries burst through the door.

Liff, the barkeep, made an admirable effort to maintain his business smile, but his face was pale and there was tension at the edges of his eyes. I took my cue from him and tried to look blank. Normal. Was blank normal? What did my face look like normally?

What a stupid idea, spending time in the tavern. A tavern was the first place people came when they arrived in a new town. At least I was sitting in an innocuous corner. I watched the mercenaries without looking directly at them, shifting my gaze from time to time so that they were in the path of my saccade, a skill I was practiced at. I counted five total: two women, three men. All red-haired, of course, which was unusual; but they were also red-eyed, not in the sclera, but in the iris, which was distinctive of the Anthe. They were as lean and muscled as any laborer, but with unblemished skin, like nobles. Their clothes were practical but fine, armored in places with what looked like ceramic. They wore no visible weapons, which was surprising, but didn’t mean much, considering.

One of the mercenaries, a lean, wiry man, walked up to the bar. “Has anything strange happened in this town recently?” He asked.

Liff did a sort of cross between choking and clearing his throat before speaking. “N-no sir. Not much happens in Ort. Nothing at all, really.” He chuckled as if he’d made a very, very small joke, possibly so small that it didn’t exist.

The man reached into his pocket and produced a dowsing compass. He clicked it open and squinted at it. “Truly? Nothing at all?”

Liff nodded.

The man showed the divinometer to one of his compatriots, a tall woman. She shrugged. “Looks like he’s telling the truth, though I’m no better at reading this than you are.”

The mercenaries sat down at the bar. The one with the compass who I’d pegged as the leader spoke. “Food and drink, please.”

Liff disappeared into the back room without so much as a whisper about payment or quantity. When he returned, he served enough for ten men, but the mercenaries finished it in minutes, and Liff had to supply multiple rounds before they seemed satisfied.

I was impressed, to be honest. I thought Liff would run out or fall behind. The appetite of Anthe mercenaries was legendary. They didn’t even seem to be chewing, just tearing off bites and swallowing.

I remembered something else about the Anthe. Despite the dowsing compass, none of them could be mages. Redeyed never were. Therefore, the divinometer wasn’t animated by spellcraft, but by invested magic: it was an artifact.

I wanted it, to be honest. Artifacts were rare, so rare that nobody knew how they were made. Furthermore, a magic divinometer was exactly the kind of thing I could put to use. But stealing from the Anthe was suicidal. Possibly more so than stealing from the Collegium. Picking a redeyed’s pocket wasn’t possible with any amount of legerdemain; supposedly, they could hear a person’s breathing from two hundred paces away, or a person’s heartbeat from twenty paces, and their other senses were just as sharp.

As I watched them, I eventually noticed their appetites slow down. Suddenly, they stood up in unison and flowed out the door. It took Liff a moment to notice the pouch of coins they’d left on the counter.

I let out a sigh. They’d paid me no mind at all. Perhaps they hadn’t been sent by the Collegium after all? No, that was unlikely. The dowsing artifact was evidence of both Collegium involvement and the idea that they were looking for something.

So they were here for the star, but didn’t have a description of me, despite the fact that I’d been seen by two Collegium mages at the crater. Had the Collegium dismissed me because I was a child? I was only fourteen, and I looked a lot younger. But mages were smarter than that. The divinator in particular had been justifiably suspicious of me.

A failure of communication, then? Why wouldn’t they report the suspicious kid they’d seen at the crater? Hm.

The two mages were likely under scrutiny from having failed to retrieve the star. The Collegium was questioning their competence and their trustworthiness. In that sort of situation, to say that they’d seen a child , questioned him with the aid of divinometry, verified that he wasn’t in disguise, let him go, and then mysteriously lost the star, would be embarrassing. Especially for the divinator.

That seemed to fit. The mages I’d fooled had taken a hit to their credibility, so instead of sending them, the Collegium had sent Anthe mercenaries, with a powerful artifact instead of a divinator. It was a sensible course of action to take. Redeyed always followed orders, and artifacts couldn't be traitors either.

The important thing was that they didn’t suspect me. I was sort of safe, in the loosest possible sense of the word. As safe as you can be in the vicinity of five redeyed looking for the star you’ve stolen.