Chapter 10: Arcania
The Codex pulls into Arcania, the wizard city, without incident. As the first contingent of Librarians begins unloading crates of books, Zanther, Novanostrum, and Madra step onto the dock. They can see the spires and towers of the King’s New Omnimagick Tower (a sprawling complex of buildings linked with skyways and commonly referred to as the ‘Knot’) stretching from the center of the city. Dock workers mill about the pier in their long raincoats. A few of them mill closer to the three of them, surrounding them. Zanther gives Novanostrum a panicked look, and half a dozen workmen shed their raincoats, revealing wizard cloaks, and Zanther, Novanostrum, and Madra find themselves at the business end of a half-dozen staves.
Novanostrum has his own staff drawn, but he finds it levitated right out of his hands. Their aggressors part, and an older, taller wizard makes his way toward them.
“Novanostrum Singularis...I was under the impression we had banished you quite permanently. And yet, here you stand. You look surprised to see me. Wait, hold that pose!”
“Rassamander, you bastard!”
As he says this, Rassamander Andolin, Maximagus of the First Circle and head wizard of the Arcanian Wizards’ Council waves his own golden staff, freezing the three of them in their respective poses. In a state of suspended animation, Zanther has one hand on the hilt of his still-sheathed longknife, Madra, her eyes wide, has her hands over her mouth, and Novanostrum stands defiant, arms crossed, rolling his eyes.
Rassamander snaps his fingers and his statuesque victims are placed on a wooden platform being drawn by a horse. The Maximagus walks toward the main boulevard, trailed by the impromptu parade float and his contingent of elite wizards.
Varello watches the scene from his cabin window. He climbs the stairs leading to the captain’s quarters and knocks on the door.
“I assume you saw what happened to them,” Varello says.
“What can I do? It’s not our place to fight wizards. We’re Librarians. It’s one thing to trade fire with some clumsy Crucifers, but getting our ship blasted to pieces by lightning and fireballs isn’t something we’re trained to deal with.”
Varello nods. “Well, I think I can help them, but I’ll need your help. I need your crew to find me some books about songspells.”
The captain rises from his chair. “That’s something we can do.”
Storm clouds gather overhead as people in the streets of Arcania freak out, swarming merchants to purchase supplies so they can barricade themselves in their homes, people fleeing to the countryside, people fleeing to the city from the countryside. In the midst of all this simultaneous, undirected fleeing, rumors fly of an army of daemons killraping and murderslaughtering its way across Upper Kleighton, seemingly in the direction of Arcania.
Somewhere within the scurrying masses, a few plucked notes make their way into the general noise, nearly unnoticed amid the general din of hysterical screams and shouts. Rassamander leads his procession towards the heart of the Knot.
Within the crowd, a strange thing is happening. Instead of running around in anxious circles, some of the people are skipping in the rain, moving their bodies in time with the lutist. A woman carries a giant pitcher of water, swinging it around like it’s her dancing partner. She almost hits Varello.
He leads this group of dancers through throngs of serious-looking wizards, and when he draws close enough to the rolling wooden platform, there’s a subtle shift in tempo, and the melody changes.
It takes a few eyeblinks, but once the melody has run its course, Varello sees Novanostrum’s eyes unfreeze. Novanostrum jerks his head ever-so-slightly, motioning toward the staff of the wizard marching nearest the float. Without skipping a beat, Varello kicks this wizard, grabs his staff, and tosses it to Novanostrum.
Zanther and Madra begin to snap out of their stupors, and Novanostrum blasts the confused wizards with fireballs and lightning. Rassamander conjures a shockwave, knocking his own wizards off the street and into second-story windows and awnings, but Novanostrum swings his staff like a bat and deflects the energy toward a philosophers’ guild, which explodes in a shower of wooden planks and sophistry.
At the bottom of the crater, two bearded men sit at a table smoking pipes.
“The worst thing is,” one of them says, “we’ll never know for sure what caused this explosion.”
“How can you be certain an explosion even occurred?” his partner asks.
A few eyeblinks later, a stray fireball crashes down upon them and knocks them to the ground, burning and writhing, trying to put out the flames which have consumed their clothes and their beards.
Rassamander pulls his staff into two identical golden staves and crosses them, sending a barrage of meteorites showering down from the sky. Just before impact, Novanostrum twists the outer ring on the face of the Ristwatch, and the celestial projectiles stop. The rain hangs in midair, confused about the sudden lack of gravity. The people stop moving. Next to the float, a paused bolt of lightning looks like a giant tower, a tree of light. Novanostrum massages his temples.
“Still have your father’s watch, I see,” Rassamander observes.
“Comes in handy sometimes.”
“And yet, even with that trinket, he was perpetually late...still is, I hear.”
Novanostrum snaps. He plucks Zanther’s longknife from his frozen hand and wings it at Rassamander, piercing him through the chest.
Time resumes. The meteorites melt into dust, but the rest of the carnage continues unabated.
Zanther spins around, looking for his weapon. He finds it lodged in a wizard and pulls it free, wiping it clean on the sputtering old man’s cloak.
Seeing their leader dead, the remaining wizards drop to their knees in deference as Varello, Madra, Novanostrum, and Zanther walk calmly towards the city gates.
“Hey, uh, Nove,” Zanther asks, “what happened back there? Did I save the day?”