After Master Gravitas and Master Rattus’ exit, the taskforce meeting dissolved into a babble. Floridiana and Den listed all the insurmountable challenges we would face, Mistress Jek and Bobo countered them, and Stripey and Master Jek tossed in the occasional comment. As for me, I walked across the table to take a closer look at Floridiana’s book. Even if A Mage’s Guide to Serica were full of lies, maybe it would give me some ideas for what not to try on Lord Silurus.

The lighting in the cottage was horrendous and the scribe’s handwriting worse, but the gist was that Lord Silurus was too smart to come out of the water – and in water he was invincible. His skin was so hard that neither blade nor spell could punch through. His teeth and whiskers were steel, and he could wield the latter like lances. (The book included a grisly illustration of a man impaled through his belly.) I already had personal experience with the teeth, of course, and I could attest that even his throat lining was tough.

Anyway, after multiple direct assaults had failed, various “heroes” had tried poisoning the demon. First they spiked plump pigs and cast them into his lair, but he gulped them down and never seemed to develop so much as a tummy ache. Then they dumped toxins into the river itself. However, the currents swept them by too fast to affect him – although they did kill off many of the mortal animals and even some of the spirits who lived in the river. Oops.

The author didn’t mention starvation among humans who relied on fishing, but I could guess. Honestly, it was probably for the best that would-be heroes had given up on slaying the “Catfysh Demon of Black Sand Creek.”

All in all, Floridiana’s book confirmed that “normal” methods of murder were out. I assumed that Yulus, too, had tangled with Lord Silurus at some point in the last six hundred years and come away scarred, given the tentativeness with which the dragon handled the demon.

Hmm. Maybe what I needed was a more powerful dragon.

And since the Dragon King of the Eastern Sea was going to be more inclined to vivisect me than help me, I had to manufacture my own.

There was an old folktale, I mused out loud, not particularly caring if the others could hear. One by one, they fell silent. The plot is unimportant, but it’s about a boy with no magic who lives in the mountains for a while and turns into a mighty mage.

“Oh, you’re talking about ‘The Mage of Cloud Mountain’.” To no one’s surprise, the traveling mage recognized the story at once.

“Huh, I haven’t heard that one,” remarked Den.

“Probably because it’s from North Serica.” With the cadences and hand gestures of a professional storyteller, Floridiana summarized the tale, frustrating my attempt to save time. “Once upon a time, there is a farm boy with an abusive stepmother. He runs away to live in the Wilds of the Jade Mountains. He’s puny and no physical match for the demons there, but he’s clever. Every time they catch him, he tricks them into letting him go, or taking him on as a retainer, or feeding him to fatten him up for a feast – after which he escapes with a full belly, of course. Later, he carves a name seal for himself from bamboo, teaches himself magic, and starts fighting the demons. As the years pass, he realizes that he is far older than any human should be. He has awakened and turned into a spirit himself! Then he establishes a court of his own in a cave on Cloud Mountain and lives happily ever after. The end.”

The others hung on her words. It was an entertaining story, I supposed, even if she’d skipped the details of the main character’s escapades.

Floridiana arched an eyebrow at me. “Why’d you bring up an old folktale?”

Because I’d just remembered that Cassius’ mages had run an experiment where they sent mortal animals into the Wilds to see if they would awaken. They (the mages, not the animals, which were blessedly quiet) had blathered on about how magic itself could be broken down into particles called “magitoms” – no, “corpuscles” – no, definitely “minima naturalia”! – and how the concentration of those pick-a-name-based-on-which-mages-you-want-to-offend particles were higher in the Wilds than in the settled areas.

Normally I’d tried my hardest to avoid mage scholars, but in this case, Marcius was the one who’d spearheaded the experiment. It’s much harder to fob off the emperor’s favorite cousin on your secretaries.

Scrunching up my face at the memory, I explained, It is believed that the concentration of magic is higher in the Wilds, and hence mortal creatures awaken there sooner than elsewhere in Serica. Also, spirits gain power at a faster rate there than elsewhere.

The modern-day but equally-annoying mage barely let me finish my sentence before she cut in. “Oh, you mean the theory of magitomism? That’s been around for ages.”

The half-dismissive, half-defensive tone of an insecure mage determined to establish herself as the ultimate authority was only too familiar. I ignored her.

Near the end of the Empire, the Imperial Mages actually started an experiment to see how it would affect awakening. They never finished it – now I regretted not waiting until after they’d finished to bring down the Empire – but their preliminary results indicated that at least the mages who went to perform the experiment gained power.

Before anyone could marvel at the discovery, Floridiana shrugged. “Well, yes, everyone knows that. The problem is staying alive in the Wilds. If it were so easy, don’t you think we’d have settled them by now?”

ANYWAY, my proposal is that we send Yulus to live in the Wilds until he grows powerful enough to fight Lord Silurus.

“What?!”

“Huh?”

“We’re doing WHAT?”

But it was the other dragon who drowned them all out. “No way! That’s impossible! There’s no way Heaven’ll let him just take off like that!”

I didn’t think it would – which was why I didn’t plan to suggest that he apply for a leave of absence.

Ah, but how would they know if he does? It’s not like they send clerks to check up on him.

Black Sand Creek might be bigger than Caltrop Pond – but it still wasn’t a trend-setting metropolis that sucked in the rich and powerful and the attention of Heaven.

Den waved his arms, nearly hitting Bobo. “They don’t have to! He’s responsible for making it rain, remember?! Without him, there’s no rain! And that is a capital offense.”

Well, only if he were allotted any.

Okay, fine. He would be. It was just a question of whether the amount sufficed for the farmlands around here. Could he make it rain here if he were all the way north in the Jade Mountains?

No, silly question. If he were powerful enough to summon rain to the Black Sand Creek area while he was in the Wilds, he’d be powerful enough to fight Lord Silurus and we wouldn’t have to send him to the Wilds in the first place.

Well, on to our backup dragon.

I eyeballed Den, making him rear back. Then I prowled across the table at him.

You aren’t responsible for bringing rain anywhere, are you? Caltrop Pond is so small that it just gets a share of the precipitation assigned to Black Sand Creek.

“Yes, but – ” Den arched over the back of his chair as he tried to put an extra few inches between us.

And if you spend practically all your waking hours partying, you can’t possibly have any important duties. And Heaven can’t possibly check up on you.

“Um, well, that is….” Now he was folded over the back of his chair, upside down.

Which means that if you abandon your post and head off into the Wilds for a while, no one will even notice.

“Paperwork!” he blurted out, flipping around and slithering down the back of the chair like a snake. “There’s paperwork I have to submit regularly! Like – like – census forms!”

I’m sure your courtiers can take care of that for you. However lazy those rice paddy snake spirits were, they were surely capable of counting minnows.

“But, but, but – the Meeting of the Dragon Host!”

Already happened a few moons ago. That gives you three-quarters of a year to live in the Wilds and absorb magic.

“Urgh, but….” Den’s voice trailed off as he failed to come up with legitimate reasons that he couldn’t simply go absent without leave for most of a year.

Unexpectedly, Floridiana offered, “I’ll go with you.”

Well, in retrospect, it wasn’t so unexpected that an ex-traveling mage would succumb wanderlust and power lust. But I didn’t hate the idea, per se….

There was someone else who did. “What about the school?” protested Mistress Jek. “Who’ll teach? You’re the only one who can!”

I supported Floridiana. Holding classes in the yard through the winter was going to be a problem anyway. We can use the time while Floridiana is away to build an actual, dedicated schoolhouse.

For now we only had one teacher, so a one-room schoolhouse made the most sense. But I wanted to plan ahead for when all the children in the barony attended school and we divided them up by age…. We definitely needed a large building. Maybe not on the scale of the Imperial Academy, but it should have at least six classrooms. Oh, and a large hall for dance practice, maybe fencing practice. We could expand it gradually, add upper grades….

Visions of an institute of higher learning on the banks of Black Sand Creek danced through my head. This place would no longer be a backwater known only for its vicious “Catfysh Demon.” The town of Claymouth would transform into a peerless intellectual hub, famous for churning out mages and scholars and government ministers! Parents all over Serica would vie to get their children a spot at my academy! Just think of the boost to the education level, the local economy, the standard of living!

Yes, Aurelia would love it! The Accountants would love it!

While I charted the development of my New Serican Academy, the other taskforce members were still discussing Den’s trip to the Wilds. His protestations were growing weaker as they were overwhelmed by the combined enthusiasm of Floridiana and Bobo.

At last, he asked, “Is any old spot in the Wilds good enough? Any old spot in the Wilds can’t be good enough, right?” He sounded half-resigned and half-hopeful that the particular spot I named would be impossible to reach and hence force us to scrap the mission.

Everyone looked at me, even Floridiana. (She didn’t look happy about having to consult me on matters of magic, though.)

I shrugged my shell. As I said, the Imperial experiment was never completed. I would imagine that specific locations would advance magical abilities faster, but we have no way of knowing where they are.

“Do you know where the Imperial experiment was located?” Floridiana pressed.

I may be able to find out, but you shouldn’t rely on it.

In fact, I wasn’t sure whether trying to find out was a good idea. I didn’t know what access to the Heavenly archives required. Did Flicker have any plausible reason for brushing up on his Empire-era history?

“We’ll experiment ourselves!” Floridiana exclaimed, grinning at Den and inviting him to share her excitement. “We can test different locations and see where we gain power the fastest!”

“Uh…. How, uh, will we do that?”

“We’ll be systematic,” she promised, even though that hadn’t been his concern. “You can sense it when you grow magically, right?”

“Um, yes? Maybe? I haven’t really thought about it.” Den, to no one’s surprise, lacked a scholarly bent.

“Good. So can I. So we’ll spend, say, a week – maybe longer? Hmm, well, some set period of time – in different places and measure our growth at each. Then we’ll go back to the best one and camp out there for as long as we can!”

She babbled on about experimental design for so long that she was still going when the rice paddy snake spirits herded the Jek children back to Honeysuckle Croft. Apparently they’d gotten tired of waiting for their king and come to pick him up themselves.

Den interrupted Floridiana’s monologue with a relieved, “See y’all next week!” and skittered out the door.

“No, no, I’ll come see you tomorrow!” Floridiana called after him. “There’s so much to plan! What time do you get up? Midmorning? Late morning?”

The entire length of his snakelike body sagged. “Let’s make it after lunch.”

“Sure.”

And Floridiana dove back into A Mage’s Guide to Serica, scouring the sections on the Wilds for inspiration.