Page 14 of A Tower of Half-Truths

Seven

By the end of her first week as a wizard’s assistant, Mavery had made two crucial discoveries.

First, her real task was proving more difficult than tracking down hundreds of library books.

With Alain constantly around, her casing had been confined to book pages.

While searching the libraries of the wealthy, Mavery would often come across bond certificates and currency used as bookmarks.

Somehow, the affluent couldn’t resist flaunting their wealth in subtle ways, even in the privacy of their own libraries.

Alain tended to use whatever flat debris had been closest at hand: scraps of paper, playing cards, silk ribbons, the occasional tea envelope that left a hint of herbs and spices on the pages.

Mavery had been removing these as she came across them and adding them to a pile that now resembled a magpie’s nest. An eccentric, but completely worthless, collection.

Her second discovery was that wizards’ books were incredibly boring.

Alain had told her she could borrow anything from his personal collection that piqued her interest. But she was more likely to find a sack of jewels than an entertaining book.

Most of them were so full of complicated diagrams and scholarly babble, she couldn’t read more than a paragraph or two before her eyes glazed over.

The books Alain himself had penned weren’t much better. Mavery had come across one of his recent texts, On Etherean Metaphysics. It had more to do with the philosophy of magic than the mechanics of it, but she had only tolerated a single page of jargon-filled sentences before setting it aside.

Presently, she was leafing through The Historical Uses of Gardemancy Spells on Merchant Marine Vessels.

She landed on a chapter devoted to barnacle-repelling wards.

With a scoff, she turned to the book’s front matter and made some notes for the new cataloging system she was in the early stages of developing.

“What is it?” Alain asked from his armchair. Her sounds of boredom had been louder than she’d realized.

“Just wondering why you wizards insist on stripping all the magic from, well, magic.“ She held up the book she’d just cataloged.

“I think a colleague gifted me that one,” he said.

“Seems less of a gift and more of a punishment.”

He chuckled. “Such things usually are.”

Her lower back twinged in protest as she rose from the floor. Gods, what she wouldn’t give for proper seating. But the room was too cluttered to move any of the furniture, not even Alain’s spindly desk chair.

“I have another stack for Chitterton College,” she said. “When did you say their courier was coming?”

“Next Trisday, if memory serves.”

“We should move these to the storage room, get them out of the way until then.”

She lifted the stack, then inched her way across the room. Alain closed his book and sprung from his armchair.

“Oh, no, it’s already filled to bursting,” he said quickly. “Let me fetch one of my transmutated bags. Stay right there.”

He unlocked the door with one of the keys he wore around his neck.

Sparing a glance over his shoulder, he opened the door just wide enough to squeeze through the gap, but not an inch more.

From the little Mavery could see, the room hardly looked “filled to bursting.” There was no avalanche of forgotten belongings, no floor-to-ceiling stacks of crates, nothing keeping him from opening the door all the way—other than his desire to prevent her from looking in.

Whatever valuables Alain owned, they had to be in that room.

He returned with what appeared to be an ordinary satchel, until he showed her the iridescent void that filled the inside. He offloaded the books from her arms, but no matter how many he placed in the satchel, the canvas didn’t stretch, and it didn’t become weighed down in the slightest.

“It’s a rather basic spell,” he said, apparently noticing her raised brows. “Well, ‘basic’ for the Transmutation School, at any rate.”

“I definitely skipped those lessons.”

“Transmutation spells have the highest risk of fatal accidents, and so they are only taught to sixth-year students. Judging by your reaction, I assume you didn’t make it that far in your studies.”

She’d only made it six weeks into her education—a far cry from the six years required for prospective wizards, or even the four years required for everyone else. Instead of admitting to that, she only shook her head.

“If you can make a bag larger on the inside,” she said, “couldn’t you turn that small room into limitless storage space?”

He laughed. “You really have gotten rusty if you’ve forgotten Elymor’s Law of Proportions.”

“Let’s pretend that I have.”

“Well, in essence, the larger the spell’s area of effect, the larger the anchor required to power the spell.

This satchel requires only a tiny anchor.

” He tapped one of the silver buckles on the shoulder strap; it glowed with a silver aura, and a ley line tethered it to the enlarged pocket.

“To transmutate my storage room, I would need an anchor, oh, at least twice as large as this satchel. But an Ether-sensitive boulder wouldn’t just be absurdly expensive; it would completely clash with my décor! ”

Mavery pulled a face as she gave his mess a sidelong glance.

And then she realized that he was joking.

Alain’s face reddened. As he turned away and placed the satchel beside his desk, she felt the slightest pang of guilt.

He was trying to make good on his promise to be more cordial, even if his sense of humor left a lot to be desired.

She scanned the room for something to help her steer the conversation away from awkward silence.

The book on his chair seemed the most promising.

“So, er, what were you reading just now?” she asked.

“I’ve been going through my old research journals, seeing if there’s anything worth revisiting.

” He retrieved the book from his armchair.

A wistful look passed over his face as he stroked the cover.

“This one contains my notes from the project I’d been working on just before my sabbatical.

” He sighed. “It’s a project best left shelved, but you can take a look. ”

She startled at being given permission to read his private journal, then realized that a research journal would likely be as riveting as everything else in this room.

Still, not wanting to be rude, she took it.

She skimmed through the earliest entries, pausing on occasion to admire his elegant handwriting.

And then she noticed a name any mage for hire would recognize.

“I see you, too, were drawn to the Innominate Temple.”

Alain’s eyes lit up. “You know of it?”

Mavery laughed. “The old ruin that’s baffled scholars for centuries? Of course I know of it.”

Of all the ruins wizards paid others to investigate on their behalf, the Innominate Temple was, by and large, the most popular request. Mavery and Neldren had once accepted that job together, though her memories of it were so muddled, she couldn’t even remember the route they’d taken.

She had only a vague idea of where the temple was located: in northeastern Osperland, somewhere within the forests of Dyerland Province.

Since then, Neldren had tried his luck several more times. Once, he’d managed to get within a few yards of the temple, but the warding magic had prevented him from getting any closer. To this day, no one had yet discovered the temple’s purpose, much less found their way inside.

“I’ve never seen it in person,” she said. “I came close once, about twelve years ago, but the magic overwhelmed my Senses so badly, I had to turn back.”

“Oh, I see.” Alain’s shoulders slumped, his excitement evaporating. “It’s probably for the best you didn’t get any closer. The area around the temple is inundated with traps. Very lethal traps.”

“Have you ever been there?”

“No, only my…” He frowned, lowered his eyes. “No, I haven’t.”

She couldn’t blame him for being so forlorn. Whoever found their way inside the Innominate Temple—whether a glory-seeking scholar or a fortune-seeking adventurer—would be renowned across the continent. And, of course, they would lay claim to whatever treasures were inside that ruin.

“So, what’s your theory?” she asked. “Are you among those who think it was for some long-forgotten pre-Pantheonic god?”

“Hardly,” he scoffed. “I have reason to believe the ‘temple’ had nothing to do with worship. Here, take a look at this.”

Rather than asking her to hand back the journal, he stepped over a pile of books and bridged the space between them. He stood over her shoulder, then reached across her as he turned the pages. He stopped at an entry that was dated a few weeks shy of one year ago.

Dredisday, 12 Pluviose, 1040

Despite my initial skepticism, Lorcan’s decision to spend the past month combing through old tax records may not have proven a waste of time after all.

He uncovered a letter from 533, addressed to the Wizard Aganast, from Dyerland’s Solicitor General.

Aganast had fallen delinquent on his taxes for a property of some sort.

The writing was too faded to parse. This seems promising, but will require further investigation.

“Who’s Lorcan?” she asked.

“One of my former assistants. What’s more important is this name.” His finger prodded the center of the page.

“ ‘The Wizard Aganast’? Can’t say it rings a bell.”

“I’m not surprised. He’s been all but scrubbed from the history books.

” Alain shook his head. “Oh, I remember spending days researching him, only to find a half-dozen references in just as many books. I must have torn apart the University’s library.

That didn’t win me any favors with the arcanists, I can assure you. ”