“Tell me what you’ve worked out about the Temples, so far,” Iria demanded, stabbing her fork into some greens. She’d summoned Bernt to her office for lunch – the sed time she’d done so since he’d been reassigo the guild.

  The first time around, she’d grilled him about post-Madurian history. He’d answered her questions as best he could, but the archmage had exag standards. Sure, he knew what happened and when, but she’d wanted interpretation and applicability in the modern text.

  This time, he’d e prepared to do better.

  “They don’t really get along,” Bernt said. “The Invigition isn’t really an alliance of like-minded gods, or their temples. If you look at their writings, it’s clear that they really only have ohing in on – they’re all interventionists.”

  Iria looked at him over her gsses for a moment and then resumed eating. Bernt took her silence for firmation that he was on the right track.

  “All of the gods had good reason to take offe the purge of their temples in Mahat’Ur, but only those four actually intervened personally. W together probably only served to ehat a more servative god, like Oreleth, or Rouan, wouldn’t challehem for their direterference. After all, their as nearly led to the destru of human civilization. They were taking a risk.”

  “Good. What does that mean for us?” Iria asked. “Specifically, with regard to political influence.”

  Bernt shrugged. “It means we deal with each temple individually. Each of them have retively simple and predictable objectives and is. Noruk wants to facilitate unity through quest, while Barian likes freedom, y aerogey. Eyeli wants to create prosperity through order and growth, and Ruzinia just wants to save everyone, somehow.”

  “Which means,” Iria finished, him a small nod, “that getting an individual temple’s support is often as simple as aligning your as and objectives with their retively simple is.”

  “Right.” Bernt said. “But what are our objectives? You haven’t even told me what our is are. The guild, I mean. What do you wao get out of it for you?”

  Iria scoffed. “It’s not about me. The Mages’ Guild is a powerful institution in Besermark – and the oldest one, for that matter. We aren’t the most popur, the rgest, or the wealthiest guild, but we’ve always been closest to the ears of the powerful. We’ve represehe bae of every human military and every ter of learning and academics sihe Madurian Empire. We are their true legacy, more than the nobility or the temples or any other institution. Every ruling noble in the try has a court mage to advise them – not a court priest or a court berserker.”

  Bernt took a bite of his own lunch – a sadly bable he’d bought at a nearby market for a few coppers – and chewed uhusiastically to give himself a moment to think. “So, we just want to make sure we’re part of the a? So we don’t lose face?”

  “No,” Iria said bluntly. “Of course not. We want to prevent a massive war from breaking out if at all possible. Chaos is the catalyst for political and societal ge, and the guild has a lot to lose. We’re vulnerable. uild is active in infrastructure ma, unication, security and warding, medie, stru, agriculture and nearly every major industry in the try. We already lose too many fresh academy graduates to the military – we absolutely ’t afford to have hundreds of uild mages drafted and killed fighting the Duergar. The entire try’s ey would colpse. And that would be if we win!”

  “Right, and the king ’t afford that either,” Bernt said slowly, as several other facts finally clicked into p his mind. “That’s why the t and the guilds are just letting the Temples take over like this, right? The 't afford to fund a massive war alone. If the Invigition is in charge, they’ll have to use their own resources, and also pull in all of our neighbors to share the load.”

  Iria shrugged. “If it es to that. Our is are clear. We he Invigition to take things oep at a time – to reach out to the Duergar’s Imperial cil and discover their iions. I expect that they don’t uand the extent to which their vassal is traffig with demons. If we’re lucky, they’ll simply fight amongst themselves and leave us out of it entirely.”

  “That… that would be ideal.”

  Bernt tried to imagi. It souoo good to be true, sidering how things had been going.

  “It would,” Iria agreed, “but there’s no ce of that happening if Noruk’s warmongers mar army of fanatics down there first. The only way to reach the best possible future is to make that future for ourselves. So, we know what Noruk wants – he and his priests are obviously not a potential ally. What have you learned about Eyeli?”

  ***

  Berhe lunch meeting disturbed by the implications of what the archmage had told him. Did Iria seriously expect him to single-handedly influehe entire Invigition to do as she wished? That seemed ridiculous. On the upside, he didn't think he he would need to viorvald to speak out against invading a fn empire on Noruk’s say so. But what was that worth?

  How much weight would Torvald’s word carry? Bernt wasn’t part of the cve – he could only try to talk to people informally. But why would a the Sacral Peaks listen to him? How did Iria expect him to ge anything?

  Trying to banish the looming sense of dread that had formed i of his stomach over the course of the meeting, Bernt dropped by Magister Pollock’s office to discuss potential experiments that he could run in the Phoenix Reaches. Despite himself, though, he quickly found himself derailing the versation and spilling his worries out to the old man, starting with the lunch meeting, and expining backwards to where he agreed to bee Torvald’s legitimator.

  “Take a breath, boy.” Pollock admonished him. “Iria has always been too focused on her schemes, you hear me? The world will burn tomorrow, or it won’t.”

  The old man leaned forward, tapping on the pages of Bernt’s notes on his desk as he met his eyes. “It’s all just a distra. This, right here, is real history.”

  “The archmage says this could impact the future of the entire guild, and all of Besermark with it! How I ighat?!”

  Pollock shrugged. “A few cities more or less in the world – that’s a for kings and emperors. That’s why they get to wear a golden hat! Powerful people with more knowledge and experiehan you are already w to protect the status quo – that’s what Iria wants, is it not?”

  “I guess.” Bernt ceded. “She didn’t sound fident that things would go our way, though, and she expects me to help.”

  “Pfff." Pollock chuffed. "There’s always something threatening the kingdom. You just never hear about most of it. When you , you should leave those s to the people who are best equipped to deal with them. Iria is too focused on high-level s. You o sider what you do better than anyone else.”

  Bernt looked down at the he old wizard had been poking at a moment before.

  “Experiments?”

  “Research!” Pollock corrected him emphatically. “Researto the applications of sorcery and sorcerous iures in magecraft. Preventing a rger war is udable, but it’s a poor use of your time and abilities. These experiments are important! Far more important than politig with priests. You ied a method for rest burnt out war mages to service. Perfeg that, and developing yourself to see where we take it iure, would make a huge difference. Instead of supplying guild mages for a war, for example, we could restore trained veterans in trade. It would strengthen both the guild and the entire try as a whole!”

  Bernt bli Pollock, surprised at the frustration that had crept in his voice as he spoke. “Uh. I heard that former war mages were already using it, actually. Fiora – my boss – was a war mage. She said that mages would have started using my method the moment they heard about it.”

  Pollock scoffed dismissively. “All the more reason to speed this along! Without a proper, officially saned procedure, you’ll have people burning their spirits to ders with improperly optimized hellfire derivatives. This sort of thing o be done in a trolled enviro with trained experts!”

  That seemed more than a little hypocritical to Bernt, sidering the kinds of risks that Pollock sidered entirely justified for himself and wizards in general. Still, it didn't seem wise to point that ht now.

  “Alright, then, why don’t we go to Iria and ask her about it? I’m sure she’ll see the sense behind it if we expin it like that. Maybe I could bring aire research team along!”

  “I have.” Pollock said, sounding suddenly exhausted. “I’ve been hounding her about it for weeks. She’s too servative – says I’m pushing you too fast, and that the guild in Teres o get used to the idea before we get anything officially endorsed. There’s a lot of resistahere to the idea that ‘primitive’ magic like sorcery should have a p the guild at all.”

  Bernt ran a hand through his hair and tried not to curse. “So, I actually have two important jobs to do, but I only get support for the ohat I’m unqualified for,” he cluded, the earlier sense of dread he’d been feeliurning, now redoubled.

  “Nonsehe old wizard cackled. “You have one job and I’ll help you with it. The one Iria gave you is a waste of time. But she’s still throwing lots of time and guild resources your way, and that is not a waste. A good general education never is.” He picked up the notepaper in front of him and waved it in front of Bernt’s face.

  “Now, I have to ask, what exactly do you hope to learn by summoning a lesser fme sprite?”

  Bernt shrugged. “I want to toss oo a rune circle to see if it’ll unravel into a spellform. The description made it sound almost like a cross between a spell and aal. If I’m lucky, I might be able to use it as a sort ing iure.”

  "Hmmm." Pollock squi Bernt in sternation. Then, he opened his mouth, closed it again, crossed his arms and looked up at the ceiling, sidering. Finally, a slow crooked grin spread across his face.

  “Well, it sounds like a long shot. But if it doesn't work, you might still be able to harvest something from it that might support the growth of your sorcerous iure. Either way, we'll learn something new."

  ***

  By the time Bero go home that night, he felt almost fident. Well, maybe fident was a bit of an exaggeration, but he had a dire. Goals that felt achievable. Sure, he would do what he’d promised to Iria and talk to whht listen at the Sacral Peaks. Ultimately, though, he was sure that Pollock was right. The biggest impact he could have was as a wizard, not as some kind of Mages’ Guild diplomat.

  The old pyromancer had not only helped him refine his experiments, he’d also given him a list of potential materials to look for. Most of those had already been in the reading materials Bernt had checked out about the Phoenix Reaches from the library, but Pollock’s list included their uses in various mawork architectures, and even a few notes about alchemy and ritual magic.

  After stopping for a few sticky buns from a familiar-looking street vendor iemple District, Bernt made his way through the inner gate to the ruined Crafters’ District. It was already dark out, and he could make out the shadowed silhouettes of Duergar prisoners as they repaired cracked foundations and id new ones. Seeing them there, calmly w in the middle of Halfbridge still left a bad taste in his mouth.

  Tugging his scarf tighter around his neck, he hurried past, suddenly feeling unatably disturbed. Somethi wrong here. It was too quiet and too dark. He could still hear the noises made by the Duergar workers, of course, but the blood rushing through his ears was even louder.

  Suddenly, the hairs on the back of his neck stood on end a flinched, whirling around.

  A silhouette stood ireet behind him, nearly half as tall again as he was. Quick as a she shadow reached for him, a creepy, six-fingered hand darting at his face. Bered even before he fully registered what he was seeing.

  Light fred in his right hand as he poured manaburn out into it and flung it forward toward his assaint.

  The liquid white fire missed, but only because the motion turned out to be unnecessary. As soon as it was exposed to the light, the shade colpsed down, stretg out along the ground away from him like the shadow of a man that wasn’t there. It wriggled oddly, as if the demon were still trying to strike him, but it couldn’t break out of its two-dimensional form. The shadow advanced, feet first. It briefly crept up onto his robes, but was forcibly pushed back by the light a moment ter.

  Realizing what it was, Bernt lifted the fme flickering in his right hand to elimihe nearby shadows as much as possible. At the same time, he formed banefire in his left. Dull gray fire kindled in his hand, but he never got a ce to use it. The shadow flickered once, recoiling, and was gone.

  Bernt whirled around, trying to find it, but there was nothing there. The Duergar were still w, though one was looking curiously at the light Bernt was holding up. Bernt gred at him until he looked away, and then turo tinue making his way to the Uy. He’d have to report this to the Solicitors, but he doubted any of them would still be in the office.

  Bernt cast a torch spell a h over his shoulder. He shivered, uo shake the unnatural sense of terror and wrongness that had struck him right before the attack. That couldn't be natural. He didn’t care how many strange looks he got, he was never going anywhere without a light ever again.