III

The past week or so had done miracles to both himself and Isi.

For her part she had filled out well, everywhere, she had curves in places he hadn't seen in almost two years. The mines had a way of doing that to people, stripping them down of all life. The carriage jostled as the ironclad wheels bounced over a brick paver that had worked it’s way loose and now sat above the level of the rest of its kin. The motion brought Adrian out of his thoughts and back to the dark and gloomy surroundings of the city of Helheim. It was in the center of the territory the empire held, though if his father the General had anything to say it would not be the last, he would not stop until the empire had regained its lost territory...

“Holtopa Nashoba,” Isi said a small smile on her lips, he glanced at her lips and smiled. She had just called him darling wolf, it had been a term of endearment she had used on several occasions, apparently, when she had first seen him she had thought of him as an old wolf, snarling at its enemies. She hadn't told him until later that her Scraeling tribe’s spirit was a wolf, and that the wolf was supposed to protect them. He looked at her, she smiled and leaned forward, squeezing his leg with her hand in a comforting way. She had seen Adrian in many different situations, she could tell just by a glance that he was nervous, as she squeezed his leg she looked out the window, watching the crowds of people with amazement. She had obviously never seen this many people in one place, seeing as the two of them had worked hard to stay away from any city that had a large population on their flight from Kurtz, seeing as a large population usually meant a large number of patrolling guards...

He followed her gaze and looked out to see the tall buildings, most made of wood plastered over and whitewashed stood two or sometimes three stories tall. The packed streets had hundreds if not thousands of people milling about.

He was nervous.

Nervous to see his own father, what a joke, he had gone to war, held an enemy army off during a siege, killed a man by drowning him and many other ways, and worked in a hell hole for five years and this man still caused him this much unease?

His father was a force of nature, a man who would not simply let something as small as a missing son or rather a son that he had thought was dead for the past five years slow him down. Adrian had often wondered if his father even had emotions…

The carriage rumble on, passing by the buildings and smaller single-family structures and into an even more crowded section of the city, this one populated almost entirely with shop fronts. On the corner streets, children yelled out news and waved around papers. Adrian had always hated those papers, you could never get the truth out of them, they were practically owned by the Helheim magistrate, meaning all the news that was in it was censored, not quite to the level of propaganda but not far off…

The empire was in a state of transition.

Helheim was an old country, almost as older even than the Kurtz empire, it had been built on the old traditions, where mages were considered royalty. And while that was still true, it was more like mages were the property of the country now, not it’s rulers. The bloodline of mages was getting weaker and weaker, watered down with each generation. Adrian, for example, could not do as much as his father, and his father could do less than his father. As it stood he hadn't cast magic in almost six years, not since his reagents had been taken from him. Reaching into his pocket he pulled out the small metal tin that held the ingredients he needed to cast spells and opened it, looking inside at the compartments holding the reagents. In some of the small compartments, there were fine powders, like the Calamine, a soft white flour like powder used for casting small healing spells, others were like the Ichor, contained in small glass bottles corked to prevent the inky liquid from spilling. Every time a mage cast a spell he would need some of these ingredients, these reagents to cast. After all one could not create something from nothing, to cast a light healing spell required Calamine and purified water, a flame required Nitre and Sulfur, each and every spell required something.

He glanced over at Isi.

Well, perhaps not every spell, whatever savage sorcery she used didn't seem to need anything...

Magic had shaped the Helheim Empire, made it a leading force of the old world. They had been unchallenged in the field of war magic, using it to instill terror and fear into their enemies. For centuries, they had strived for greater, and more powerful magic. However, their thirst for higher power was a sip they could not swallow. Calamity had occurred, in an unknown accident, the greatest magical library in Helheim was swallowed whole by the sea. Following it, a massive tidal wave had come and destroyed large portions of the city.

It was here that the Helheim Empire met its fall. Every generation, their forces grew weaker and weaker, far corners of the world slipped from their grasp as they struggled to find any remnants of their library, any remnants of the ancient war magics they had created. However, it was the death of Emperor Caedus that ended all that as well. His son believed that magic was the death of the mighty empire, and in such thoughts, banned the use of magic in Helheim. Emperor Kaltif was harsh and cruel. He valued strength over anything, leading the empire down a path of great economic decline. The little economic influxes they did see, were spent instantly on mass witch hunts, to find and kill practitioners of magic everywhere in the country.

His reign of terror had ended shortly after he had come to the throne when an unknown assassin ended his life at the young age of 32. His only son, at the age of 12, succeeded the throne. Emperor Julian was far more docile than his father. Calling off the mage hunts, and re-allowing the use of magic in Helheim. But, to his dismay, it was too late. Most mages who had any knowledge of previous magics had their heads lined on pikes near the throne room. The only form of magic left was the practical war magic used by the last few mages, a sad mockery of the power the empire used to hold. This magic was known as "Ecumenical".

Emperor Julian had spent the next fifty years of his reign attempting to undo his father’s mistakes, bringing mages back to their previous royal status. The issue being that the empire had spent the previous generation working without magic, so many innovations had been created to do the work mages had once monopolized. Steam-powered machines did the work of twenty men, drilling tunnels and clearing lands faster and with less cost than hiring a mage. great factories had been made employing hundreds of thousands of common laborers. Steam stacks had been created, where weaving and oil refining and kerosene had been created.

And muskets…

Gone were the days where the mage reigned supreme on the battlefield, dealing death from afar. Now a basic infantryman with a standard musket could kill with just as far a range after only a few months of training, granted it didn't have all the utility a good mage had but it did put the common man a little closer to being even with a mage.

Emperor Julian’s son, an Emperor the population had taken to calling Emperor Winlas the Idle was a fop of a man, indulging only in every pleasure without a care for the people. Choosing to instead hand the vast majority of his power over to the General and the Consul of Nobles...

As they watched the city changed around them, the wood and brick buildings giving way for the more elaborate stone block buildings and cathedrals at the center. Most scholars agree that the city of Helheim had built with the assistance of the allied Julsan people approximately a thousand years ago. Historian’s analysis of the building material’s age had confirmed that the city had expanded like circles on the water from the fortress Arx-Heim, which is still the home of the emperor. Those parts of the inner city wall that still remain are as ancient as the fortress itself while the aqueduct and the outer city wall seems to have been constructed a few hundred years later, using the same architectural style. The city was divided into several Vicas or districts, each being governed by a Consul. Almost as famous as the fortress was the Clerus Magica, the magic academy though attendance was less for mages and more for the general nobility these days, and Pharos Maximus, the great lighthouse. The harbor of Helheim faced the Inner Sea to the north and is the most important trading site of empire regarding trade with other continents.

The Great Washout, which was what the populous called the calamity that occurred when the sea had swallowed part of the city whole had caused everything to change. Though the name was disputed everyone agrees that it probably originated from when the foul-smelling tanneries and fisheries in the northern part of the city simply sank into the ocean. Another theory which had been proposed suggests that the name comes from when all kinds of abominations that had anonymously thrived in the sewer system were swept out to sea to the horror of the residents during the following flood. It had sunken a good third of the great city, including the library. That part of the city was still underwater. Thousands of homes and buildings forever lost to the ocean.

The Helheim people still regarded themselves as the most advanced civilization in the known world and many scholars called attention to their heritage from the mythic pre-Hilarian culture and the ancient alliance with Julsan. Although Helheim was still a powerful city it was also one of the few things that remain of the great empire. Helheim itself was nowadays a melting pot of different cultures and not even half of the previous territory held in generations past could be regarded as dominated by the Empire, with the Kurtz Empire on the steppe land south, Húerga Empire to the north and the warlike Scraeling clans to the east they were surrounded on all sides, though only Kurtz had yet been aggressive towards them in recent generations. Except for the city of Helheim only three others that could be called proper cities, Irusi, HeilmLeif, and Burdersberg, each home to a quarter million people or so, along with the smaller cities like Irkstead as well as the island of Isla Piska north of Helheim and a small number of colonies across the world. Contact with those colonies was sporadic at best, some had even succeeded from the empire, refusing to send any tribute or taxes.

Helheim was only around a tenth the size it was at its height now...

Adrian looked out the window again as they pulled around the corner and the Arx-Heim came into view. “And that is our destination.” A massive structure built of stone and metal was more a keep or stronghold than an actual palace, though he didn't doubt it would be rather palatially decorated on the inside. The emperor was after all known for his opulence after all…

Arx-Heim had so many lanterns it could be seen all the way from the entrance of the city even on the cloudiest of nights. Adrian started out at the gardens where the hedge mazes began and imagined he had seen a shape flitting back and forth in the lawn, only to realize it was simply a sculpture. Adrian sat back and took a deep breath. He could hear his heart beating, thumping, simply nervous or something worse? He didn't know, he felt his stomach tightening.

Upon the stairway leading into the keep stood a five-man guard, each in immaculately polished chest armor and the blue of the Yeomen, elite soldiers that were the Emperor’s own bodyguard. Each man carried a musket, a brace of pistols and a melee weapon of some sort, strapped somewhere about their body. The carriage driver opened the door and Adrian stepped out, striding down the collapsible iron footboards that the coach driver had lowered for him the light wind catching and blowing the lower section of the long coat that Adrian wore so that it fluttered ever so slightly. He nodded to the Yeoman captain, who made himself known by taking a step forward to receive him, and then looked back, offering his hand to help Isi down from the carriage.

She didn't need a hand to get down, but it was only proper for a man to help a woman out of a carriage. Adrian had told her this, and many other etiquette rules during the past week, and though Scraeling she had grasped onto the matters of propriety and image quite easily. She took his hand gracefully and walked down the iron steps in a womanly demeanor when she alighted to the ground she stepped to the side right behind him in the place polite society says she should stand.

“Major, Sir!” Adrian turned back to see the Captain of the Yeoman saluting him by pressing his hand flat against his chest, all five fingers spread over his heart. Adrian glanced at the pin on the man’s chest and saluted him back, making sure to use his good hand as he spread it over his chest.

“Captain,” he nodded dropping the salute, the Yeoman also relaxed and nodded back.

“We were uninformed that another mage would be joining us today, sir.” the yeoman said, he was a tall man standing around six foot or so and well built with a curly red mustache with a touch of grey and blue eyes.

“Are their many mages here at the moment?” Adrian asked looking surprised only for a second. The man had no doubt known that Adrian was a mage as soon as he stepped out of the carriage, perhaps even before. Most Yeomen were trained to sense mages, seeing as they were guards to the emperor they needed to be able to counter anything and everything, they could practically smell reagents. And if it wasn't that then it was surely the uniform that Adrian now wore. It consisted of a dark blue woolen coat that went past his knees with a red stripe on the right shoulder, the high collar of the mantle standing up to block the wind, and draped over both shoulders along with a tricorn hat of the same color. Under the overcoat, he wore a full black iron breastplate and a set of black iron grieves. On his waist, he wore a longsword, one taken from his house’s armory and across his chest held on with a bandoleer was a pistol which was almost the length of his forearm. His military uniform hung a little on him due to a lack of weight, but they made him look more presentable by far than anything else he could have worn.

Isi had adopted dressing this past week in a more Húerga style than local Helheim fashion. She was wearing a cream white shirt that reached mid-forearm, the cuff of which was decorated in a small amount of frill, as was the neck. Over this she wore a dark reddish brown leather corset, tied tight around her midsection, as well as a pair of leather pants and riding boots, with a red and black split skirt that covered the majority of the right leg, leaving the left exposed freeing up movement. Húerga’s women preferred functionality over the more elaborate dresses of their Helheim counterparts, and honestly, Adrian thought she looked more attractive in those clothes when she felt more comfortable than when she had been struggling in the seas of cloth that made up Helheim ladies fashion.

“Yes sir, the General has called a meeting with several of the mage Cabal and several other nobles and officials in the west wing’s meeting room sir.”

“Ah, well we wouldnt wish to interrupt something like that,” Adrian said and was about to turn around and call for another carriage when he felt Isi’s hand on the small of his back, restraining him slightly. “Ah, Captain, do you think it would be at all possible to get a message to him without being too disruptive.”

“Should not be an issue, sir, might I ask what the message is?”

“Tell him,” Adrian possed thinking for a second before a smile grew on his lips. “Tell him that Major Adrian is back from the Kurtz-Helheim warfront and wishes an audience.” the Yeoman looked confused at that.

“Ah, sir we have not been at war with Kurtz for something like six years, what warfront?”

“Five years seven months,” Adrian corrected automatically. “Just tell him, if you would Captain.”

“Right away sir,” the Yeoman snapped a salute and turned on his heel disappearing into the gaping maw that was the Arx-Heim palace's door. Isi turned her critical eye towards Adrian, stepping around to his front and leaning forward she pulled the collar of his uniform straight and pulled down on the hem of the mantle making sure everything was in order. Smiling he gave her a quick peck on the mouth, making sure to ignore the looks directed at the two of them by the remaining four Yeomen.

“Well then, this should be interesting,” Adrian chuckled, and offered Isi his arm, she promptly wrapped her own arm around his and allowed him to lead her inside the palace proper where they could wait for his father out of the cold wind...