Chapter 136 – The Scientist
I try to make myself too busy to feel worried. Most days I help with the Travelers, participate in wedding plans, and work with Dizzi on preparing the Broken Tower’s spell circle. There’s only so much we can do without the missing pieces Sandro will be sending us. But every day that passes without word from him presses on me. I know it will take time, but I don’t know how much we have left.
Mirzayael, of course, is preparing for the possibility that we won’t get Broken Tower’s spell circle fixed in time. She spends long hours drilling with Salvia and the city guards. I know what that means, even if I don’t like to think about it.
And then, a little more than a week after Sandro left, in the middle of Ollie’s bedtime routine a message appears in my Contact interface.
[Sandro: we found them. I have the spells!]
My heart nearly leaps out of my chest, and cold and hot waves of adrenaline wash through me in series.
[Fyre: You have? Are you certain?]
Wait, this is Sandro; I need to sound less skeptical.
[Fyre: That’s amazing!]
“FYRE?” Ollie prompts, given I stopped reading partway through a word. “ARE YOU OKAY?”
“Yes.” I lean back against Ollie’s paw and look up at him with a smile, and he looks back down at me with his wide, iceberg-blue eyes. “I just heard from Sandro. It’s good news.”
“OH! YAY!” Ollie says, huffing a breath of cold frost over me. “IS HE COMING HOME SOON? I MISS HIM.”
I pat Ollie’s muzzle. “I believe so. You know, you can reach out to him, whenever you like as well.”
“OH YEAH, I HAVE BEEN!” Ollie says to my surprise. “I SEND HIM A MESSAGE EVERY DAY. YESTERDAY WE TALKED ABOUT THE WEIRD BUGS HE’S SEEN AT THE VOLCANO. SOME OF THEM ARE ON FIRE!”
I cough out a laugh. I had no idea he’d been in communication with Sandro. And here I was worried about messaging him so he wouldn’t feel pressured! Actually, Ollie talking with him about mundane things was probably the exact sort of pressure relief Sandro needed, even if neither of them knew it. Ollie really is a special kid.
[Sandro: pretty sure this is what you wanted. echo confirmed that these are the plans for the refiner. or, at least, partial plans. it looks like shirasil has been trying to reverse-engineer the spells, and he’s got quite a lot of information on them. I can send you the written notes he made through the contact interface, but I’ll have to send all the drawings and spell circle designs back via wyvern.]
I frown to myself. Partial designs aren’t what I had hoped for, but beggars can’t be choosers. It’s still a lot more than I currently have at my disposal, and the fact that he can send me some written notes today might be very helpful.
[Fyre: Fantastic. Transcribe those notes as soon as you’re able: Echo might be able to help expedite the process. How long will your wyverns take to reach us?]
[Sandro: a few days, probably. maybe faster if they don’t stop too often for breaks, but once I send them off, I don’t have control over that. bituin is the fastest, she’ll probably get there first.]
His timeline is pushing it. Lorata promised a month, but Shirasil said she’d probably only give us half that time. It will hit the two week mark almost exactly when his wyverns are due to arrive. But I can’t control any of that. I’ll have to make do with what Sandro sends me and gather Dizzi and her team of artificers together as soon as he passes all the notes along. Maybe we can make do with just the notes. I hope, anyway.
[Fyre: Understood. And great job, Sandro. I knew I could count on you. Your help means more than I can say.]
There’s a long pause before his next message.
[Sandro: thanks, fyre, I really appreciate that. I hope this is enough. you’ve done so much for me and… I don’t know. you’ve just done so much for me. thank you. looking forward to getting home.]
A warmth fills me at those words. Home. Ollie had just called our city that, too. And it is our home—it just brings me joy to know others see it that way, too.
“Sorry,” I say to Ollie. “Where was I? I can keep reading now.”
“THAT’S OKAY,” Ollie says. “AND YOU WERE AT THE PART WHERE THE PRINCESSES WERE FIGHTING THE BOG MONSTER.”
It’s a story from a book of myths I obtained from a visiting merchant. Each story has a chapter of analysis after it exploring where the story originated and how much of it might be rooted in history. And the answer seems to be “quite a bit,” which I find fascinating unto itself. I just stick to the story chapters for Ollie, though. It’s nice having something to read from so I don’t have to scrape my memories for more children's books from Earth. It’s been a few decades since I read them to my daughter, anyway.
Caroline. The memories still summon a faint ache in my chest, but the sting is less intense than it used to be. I think in many ways she had moved on from me years ago, and I was the one who still needed to heal. I can’t change the past. I can never make up for the mistakes I made as her father. But I can at least learn from them, and even if that can never help my relationship with Caroline, I can at least use it to foster healthier relationships with the people I find myself with today.
“WHY ARE YOU SAD?” Ollie asks, leaning down to nudge me with his nose.
The words make my throat unexpectedly tighten, and I lean against his muzzle, hugging one arm under the bottom of his chin.
“I was just thinking about my daughter,” I tell him. “Sorry if I let my feelings leak.”
“OH.” Ollie leans his head back into me, his translator getting quieter. “It’s okay. Sometimes I feel sad, too.”
I squeeze him tighter. “When you think about your parents?”
This time I can feel his emotions leaking into me. It’s the kind of ache that mixes sadness and love in an indistinguishable blend. “Yeah. I still miss them.”
“I’m sorry, Ollie.” My eyes sting, and I swallow down the impulse to let the tears fall. “It’s completely normal to feel that way. I wish you could see them again.”
A low tone rumbles through his chest, more vibration than sound. “Me too. But I’m glad I have you. You won’t go anywhere, will you?”
“Never,” I promise, squeezing tighter. “I’ll never leave you. I love you, Ollie.”
“I LOVE YOU, TOO,” he says, his voice raising as the sadness fades a little behind a renewed wave of affection. Then a tinge of nervousness touches his mind, and he wiggles uncomfortably.
“What is it?” I prompt him. “There’s nothing you need to feel embarrassed about.”
“I WAS JUST WONDERING,” he says, and this time there’s a tiny flash of guilt as well. “IS IT OKAY IF I CALL YOU MOM, TOO? CAN I HAVE TWO MOMS? IS THAT OKAY?”
This time I can’t hold back the tears, and I let out a sob as I bury my face against his scales. “Yes, Ollie. Yes, I would love for you to call me Mom.”
Relief and affection flood from Ollie’s mind. He wiggles uncomfortably against me. “YOU’RE GETTING MY FACE WET.”
“Sorry.” I let him go and rub a sleeve over my face. “I’m just so happy.”
“I KNOW.” He nudges me for another hug, and I oblige. “AND CAN I CALL MIRZAYAEL DAD?”
I laugh. “Let’s see what she’d like to be called first. There are more options than just a mom and a dad.”
“OH, OKAY.” He closes his eyes and lets out a content sigh. His mind radiates happiness like the warmth of a sun, and I bask in it, amazed and humbled such feelings could be directed at me.
Sandro’s notes take longer to arrive than I expected. By the middle of the night he’s still sending pages and pages of Shirasil’s speculations. I skim through some of it and find the comments fascinating. It’s a degree of insight into the way the god thinks that I never expected to have access to. But it’s been a long, emotional day, and I’ll need a sharp mind to start parsing through all this magical theory. I manage to make myself fall asleep, but my eagerness doesn’t let me rest for long. The moment I deem it late enough in the morning to not be a nuisance, I call a meeting with Dizzi and her mages.
Dizzi yawns as she stumbles into my office. “Dawn? Really? Can’t this wait?”
Chert and a couple other mages file in after her, all looking equally sleep-deprived.
“Sorry,” I say. “But I thought it prudent to start deciphering Shirasil’s notes as quickly as possible.”
That wakes them up.
“What?” Dizzi’s head swivels frantically around the office. “Where are they? Let me see!”
“Not in physical form yet, I’m afraid.” I pull up my Contact interface and scroll through the pages of notes. “It looks like I’ll have to transcribe the text Sandro sent me. We won’t have the diagrams until his wyverns arrive.”
“Well what are you waiting for?” Dizzi cries. “Start writing!”
I chuckle, sitting down at my desk where I’d already laid out a scroll and some graphite. “That’s the plan. But I want you all here reading and discussing while I transcribe. Speak all your thoughts allowed. There are no bad questions. Something that is obvious to you might spark an idea in someone else.”
Dizzi’s wings flutter in excitement as she leans over my desk; the others also begin to crowd around.
“Okay,” I say, picking up my writing utensil. “Let’s begin.”
Despite my urging, the first few minutes pass in dead silence, like the room is holding its breath. I can’t blame them. First-hand thoughts from a god are something else.
“Test 356,” I write. Sandro gathered as much of Shirasil’s notes as he could, but they don’t appear to be organized in any particular order. “Jai-Zet rune pairing with 3 deg ccw separation. Resonance pattern faint but more pronounced than test 341. Note: adjust chord with constant arc angle to see if arcanum frequencies achieve positive feedback loop.”
It’s all so clinical—so precise. Not at all what I’d expect from a purported agent of chaos. But Gillow had said something months ago that stuck with me: Nothing he does is impulsive. There is far more calculation there beneath the surface than I believe he wants anyone to know. I think I’m starting to understand what the champion meant.
Some areas of speculation regain a certain Shirasil tone I can recognize, but even those sections feel reserved compared to the personality I’ve interacted with. Just how much of the god is an act? And why do they feel it necessary to put on such a facade?
Then again, the eagerness and scientific curiosity feels genuine enough. When they make a connection between different spell patterns and angles, their words become ecstatic, like they’ve forgotten the original purpose of their investigations, too caught up in the simple excitement of new discoveries.
“Aha!” Dizzi says, breaking the room’s silence with such suddenness that it causes me to jump. “I never would have thought to combine those runes. She’s a genius! Did she write anything else about branching rune paths?”
“I’m learning most of this as you are,” I tell Dizzi. And honestly, a lot of the magic theory is going over my head. “What’s so special about this combination?”
Chert is the one to answer. “It’s recursive,” he says. “It doesn’t connect to the function of the rest of the circle. It seems exceptionally wasteful from a mana perspective, but…”
“It could cause a very powerful, runaway effect,” Dizzi excitedly agrees.
And finally they all begin talking. I continue to write as fast as my cramping hand will allow, and I’m even chastised by Dizzi a couple times for smudging some symbols. But it’s like a floodgate has been opened, and the mages begin to speculate and argue over different applications of new techniques they’d never heard of before. The atmosphere is elating, despite the direness of our situation.
After a few hours my hand refuses to continue functioning and I call for a break. Dizzi sends her apprentices off to discuss what they’re learned so far, and I massage my palm as Dizzi flops heavily back on Mirzayael’s pillow.
“This is amazing,” she says, looking as though she just finished a particularly intense workout. “Some of these experiments couldn’t even be run in a mortal lifetime. I don’t think some of the theory exists outside these notes. You know how much this could change magic throughout the world?”
“I don’t,” I admit, trying to wrap my head around it. “But I’m sure you’re the best suited to spread this knowledge to others.” I pause, cutting off the rest of what I’d been about to say.
She tips her head at me. “Assuming we don’t all get smited first, yeah?”
“Not how I would have worded it,” I say.
Dizzi drums her fingers against the pillow. “These notes are amazing, but I don’t know how much we’ll be able to incorporate into the circle. I can try, but there’s only so much we can learn in the next few days. We need the actual diagrams to fill in the blanks.”
I sigh. “I know. And the diagrams are on their way. But we need to have something in case they don’t.”
Dizzi sighs along with me. “I’ll do my best, of course. But we should plan on using the other watchtower spell circles if we can’t get this one online. I know they’re not perfect, and they’ll suck the Drifting Isles dry eventually, but they’re also the best line of defense we have right this second.”
“Agreed.” And it’s a good line of defense, too. The barrier has proven extremely effective, and the weapon system can even push the gods back. But it’s not a permanent solution, and that’s what we need for this city to have a future.
“Hey, cheer up, chief,” Dizzi says, sitting up with a twinkle in her eye. “I’m not calling it quits just yet. Even the little I’ve already read has given me ideas for how to fill in some of the blanks in the Broken spell circle. And I’m pretty sure some of this could be used to strengthen our other spells. You worry about that silly marriage ceremony of yours, and let me worry about the magic.”
I raise an eyebrow. “Silly?”
“Comparatively!” she objects. “Come on, you know this is way more important. And fun.”
She’s got me there. “Well, I suppose you’re right. If you’ve got all this handled, I can go help Nek with the wedding plans.”
Dizzi tries her best to look supportive, and utterly fails. “Just as soon as you finish transcribing all of Lisari’s notes, right?”
I laugh, shaking out my hand. “You can’t get rid of me that easily.” And despite my cramped hand, I’m eager to get back to work.