Broken Lands

Chapter 329 – The Guide Watches

“You are certain?” Bai leaned back on the cushioned seat. “I knew they grew too quickly, but that is impossible. People do not affect how many Wisps the Guide grants.”

“And a year and a half to mid second upgrade from nothing is possible?” Arryn tilted his head knowingly and took a sip from his tea. 

Bai picked up his own drink, then sighed without tasting it. “No, but something unusual certainly happened right before they left Izel. They did not tell me what, but Wisp sickness is unmistakeable. So what is happening in Izel?”

Arryn chuckled. His grin grew fierce for a moment, then relaxed back into his normal grandfatherly disguise. “We’re winning. I don’t know what they did either, but it angered the Hilt enough that he stepped too far into the open. The Aurora slapped him down hard, which has somehow translated into absolutely no Hallowings in most of a year. And without Hallowings…”

Bai shook his head. He could guess, but he’d never even been to Izel. He didn’t know the local politics.

“Ah, you’re no fun,” Arryn complained, but the smile he tried to hide said otherwise. He was enjoying this. “Without Hallowings, most of the Called are ignoring the Temple. There’s also a whisper running through the Registry that the Templars have turned against the Broken Lord and are persecuting his Hallowed and that’s why there haven’t been any; they’re being captured and killed instead of celebrated. I don’t know where that rumor started.”

Bai raised one of his metallic eyebrows in doubt. “Just like I’m certain you don’t know how such a terrible rumor could possibly spread in a place like the Vocational Registry. Please; I’m older than you are, not built yesterday.”

“And who would believe that such a young-looking man could be older than a fossil like me?” Arryn grinned at Bai.

Bai took a sip of his tea. It was really quite nice; he liked the earthy steadiness. It balanced the sharp cinnamon spice well. It was too bad that Arryn didn’t take milk in his tea, but not everyone had the same tastes. “Well, you, for one. Sophia and Dav for two and three; Sophia has known people older than I am, while Dav has no trouble believing that I can copy myself to a new chassis when the old mobile unit wears out.”

Arryn shook his head slowly. “Those two. But back to your earlier question, yes, I’m certain. Amy was on quite a normal track until she ran into them. Xin’ri was advancing far slower than normal, though not unusually for a crafting-focused Called. It even seems to apply to those who spent only a little time with them, though less so; there’s a young healer in Casterville that’s already reached a surprisingly strong first upgrade. That’s more impressive than it sounds, given that her father is the Mage-Chancellor of Casterville and quite restrictive about what he lets her do. The same thing has happened to the girl they helped escort there and everyone else they fought with. There’s less of an effect on the people they met in Izel, though there’s a boy I have my eye on, and you’ve met Marcie, of course.”

Bai nodded. Marcie was an interesting case; she was a Librarian, of all things, yet she was ahead of where a Librarian should be at her age and she did not even have a Library. Oh, she was doing some work in the Mazehold Registry Library, but that was not the same thing. In Izel’s Registry Library, she was one of the respected Librarians; here, she was another set of hands, too junior to be trusted with much of anything. 

On top of that, she seemed to gain more Wisps when she helped him organize his notes than when she worked in the Library. It was hard to track, but Bai could follow trends and he had enough data to be certain about this one. That was backwards from how it was supposed to work but it supported Arryn’s theory all too well. 

“As you probably expect, everyone who was on the expedition has advanced faster than they should for what they’ve done; even Los’en Aurorasib has progressed, and he was already third upgrade. There’s nothing near Izel that should be giving him Wisps, yet he’s slowly gaining them. I’m fairly confident he gained some when they angered the Hilt, as well, but he’s been elusive on that topic.” Arryn snorted. “For someone as open as he is, he’s good at not answering questions when he wants to be.”

Bai nodded in acceptance. He was certain that he knew Los’en Aurorasib, but not by that name. He knew essentially everyone in the Broken Lands who reached the third tier, since he knew everyone who came to the Maze. That did not mean he knew their real names; many chose to travel under a pseudonym, whether or not they were registered under their real name. 

Bai could think of six or seven different people who were wolfkin of about the right age to be Los’en Aurorasib. Only four of them were male, which helped narrow it down, but that still meant there were four possibilities. If it mattered, Bai would ask for more details and probably figure out which one it was, but it was unimportant. He had not known any of them well.

What Arryn said did open one possibility that Bai hadn’t truly considered. 

“You have gained Wisps as well, then.” Bai smiled when Arryn simply frowned at him. He had just given away that Bai’s guess was correct. “That is what set you on the path to find out who else was benefiting and why. I had wondered why you were looking and where your theory came from.”

“I hate it when you do that,” Arryn complained. “You always ruin the surprise.”

“Then you should not be so obvious.” Bai hid his grin. He thoroughly enjoyed taking Arryn down a peg. He was fairly certain Arryn liked the jousting, as well; if he did not, he would not invite it by teasing Bai with partial information.

Arryn ostentatiously sighed. “Fine, yes, I gained Wisps for actions that shouldn’t have given me any. It wasn’t many, but a Professional does not gain Wisps from fighting, whether I helped rescue a town or not; the flame beavers were not a threat to Peaches and me, even if one of them was at the top of the first upgrade. A merchant does not gain Wisps from giving things away, either, and trading in low upgrade areas isn’t worth much of anything … yet I was able to upgrade an Ability from that single short leg of the trip. My Wisps have stayed higher than normal, as well. That’s not why I got involved with them, but yes, I’m sure it’s happening.”

“I don’t doubt you,” Bai answered quietly. He closed his eyes, then admitted something he hadn’t mentioned in centuries. “That wasn’t always true, you know. Professionals who were once Called and used their Called Abilities in the service of the Empire used to gain Wisps. There has simply been no way to do that since the Lords all died.”

“Since the Broken Lord killed them, you mean.” Arryn’s lips thinned, then he forced himself to relax.

Bai shook his head. He’d heard that from Arryn before, but it wasn’t the full truth. “It took longer than that. The Empire allowed bloodline title inheritance for some titles, as long as the candidate possessed the other qualifications. Those could no longer be changed and no new candidates could be proposed, but for a few generations, there were nobles. Once a bloodline failed, however, it could not be replaced and they could not move or spread. That is when Mazegate truly fell, when the original Gatelord’s last granddaughter died in the Maze instead of reaching the third upgrade.”

The evacuation happened years later than that, but Bai remembered that time all too well. The Gatelord couldn’t even pass the title to his brother; it had to be a child, and all of his children were dead. He blamed himself for pushing them too fast and too hard, but Bai knew they’d pushed themselves harder than their father ever did.

Well, except for the second son. He’d never really wanted to do anything but live on the glory of his father’s long shadow. Bai thought he remembered something about the wastrel dying at the hand of a jealous boyfriend, but he wasn’t certain. The boy would never have met the qualifications to be Gatelord even if he hadn’t died early.

“I do not know what happened after Mazegate was abandoned, but I expect that other cities fell soon afterwards. The third upgrade was the Empire’s normal requirement for the ruler of a large city, and I doubt that was possible without Mazegate. Villages in safer areas might only require the second upgrade, but even they have to do the rites, and …” Bai stopped and shook his head. “All the ways it happened are not important. I doubt it lasted more than two or three hundred years anywhere without a central authority enforcing the rules and reinforcing the knowledge of what it meant to be of Kestii. The Vocational Registry is in many ways the true successor to the Empire, though the cult of the Broken Lord would claim otherwise.”

Arryn started to say something, then frowned and seemed to change his mind. “You’re comparing Sophia and Dav to the nobles of the Empire, but they’re not nobles. Why would their presence matter?”

Bai blinked. The answer was obvious. How could he not know?

No, that was an incorrect question. How could he know was a better question. There were no nobles around; no one knew what having a noble around meant, any more than anyone truly knew much about the Hallowed. Bai refused to believe that the knowledge of the Hallowed had simply been lost when there were still Hallowed around, but it was entirely believable that the knowledge of nobles was lost.

“The Guide watches them. Its attention is closely focused on them. That’s how it was for the first few Called; they pulled others into their orbit and they grew far faster than later Called through the same challenges. It was not simply chance any more than it was some special attribute of theirs; it was simply the Guide paying more attention. Its attention spread, but it always paid more attention to some than to others.” Bai paused and checked through his references. The data was clear. 

It would be, of course. There were a lot of different studies of the early days of the Tower. It was the origin of the Empire, after all. 

“The First are not the only anomaly, and therefore not the only evidence,” Bai added. “Only one of the First survived to become a Patron, and the first Emperor was not that man. He founded the Empire instead and established the entire Kestiian system of rule and way of life. All nobles drew the Guide’s attention, perhaps through their link to the Emperor, but they were not alone either. The others who would become Patrons also attracted the notice of the Guide and made Wisps rain on those around them. Once upon a time, all Hallowed did the same; that, more than the uniqueness of their Calling, was the reason people gathered around them. They were noticed by the Guide as well as by their Patron.”

Aaron shook his head with a frown. “Hallowed don’t make it easier to earn Wisps.”

Bai smiled. “That depends on the Hallowed. Hallowed of the Broken Lord do not, it is true. As for other Hallowed, well, they must hide or die, so they attract less attention than they should. That is my belief, in any case. Yet Sophia and Dav burn brighter still, far more than they should. If what you say is true, only the First had as much attention as they do. It would explain some of the stories they tell, but I do not know why the Guide watches them so. They are not the First, and there is no way to grow to become a Patron here. Not anymore.”