The Child Prince (The Artifactor) (45 page)

“Yes.” Conli appeared struck by the idea, as if that hadn’t occurred to him before. Perhaps it hadn’t. “Yes, you’re quite correct. I shall certainly do so later this evening.”

Axelrad, more aware of time flowing past, shifted anxiously. “Where are her research materials?”

“Oh, here.” Conli directed them to a far back corner, which to Bellomi’s eyes, had absolutely no sense of organization to it. Stacks of hand bound reports, books, and notes lay in haphazard stacks around a single desk and chair. “All of this,” Conli waved an arm to include the rough circle of piles, “and that stack over there,” he pointed to two crates that lay piled near the top of the stairs.

Morgan rubbed at his chin thoughtfully and eyed the pile with a measuring eye. “I’m not sure if we brought enough sacks.”

“I thought you said those sacks were bottomless,” Axelrad objected, already opening the one he’d slung on his back.

“Oh, they are, they are. But after a certain point, they weigh a
ton
. It’s the weight that limits what you can put into them. You can fill those things to the point where even the strongest man in the world couldn’t lift it.” Morgan said this factually, as if he had witnessed it with his own eyes. “Sev once made a large one, with a huge mouth to it, and put a whole house inside of it.”

Bellomi stared at him in disbelief. Was the man pulling his leg? No, he seemed quite serious. “Why would she?”

“To prove a point. Never rile up Sev or try to limit her. She’ll do the most insane things to prove you wrong.” Morgan shrugged and opened a bag. “Well, if all of this won’t fit, we can always come back a second time. Let’s carry what we can.”

~ ~ ~

It took until past midday to pack everything. They had to redistribute the weight amongst the bags, because of course Axelrad had stuffed everything inside of just one, and Morgan hadn’t filled his bags enough, which left Bellomi the fun of sorting things out. By the time they had loaded the bags on the horses, the village had come to its height of activity and people were bustling about in every direction. Three men, two of which were known, leading horses laden down with bags didn’t garner a second glance. They left the village without one person suspecting a thing.

They went straight back to Big, unloading the bags and heading through the door. Morgan led the way, as he knew where the new Research Room had been made.

When they stepped inside, Bellomi quickly realized that Big had taken his orders to create another research room
literally
. It was an exact duplicate, right down to the shelves lining the walls and the fireplace and the chairs gathered inside. The sole difference that he could detect was the table that stood in the center of the room. Hana must have insisted upon it because even now she sat there. Aren sat next to her, turned slightly to face her, and the two of them seemed quite engaged in a lively discussion. Aren stopped mid-sentence when the men entered, looking up with a smile. “Ah, there you are. We were wondering what was taking so long.”

No, you weren’t
, Bellomi thought to himself with a frown. His father had actually been very engaged in the conversation with his girlfriend. Now just what had those two been talking about while he was gone? Bellomi made a mental note to get his father alone later and interrogate the man.

Then he thought better of the idea.

“You wouldn’t be wondering if you saw everything in these bags, Your Majesty,” Axelrad assured him.

Hana popped up from her chair with open relief, coming around the table with arms outstretched. “Is that all of it?”

“Not quite. We’ve got two more bags outside, but we did bring all of it with us,” Bellomi assured her. “But just how much information did you request, anyway? It took five never-ending bags just to bring it all here!”

“If you’d ever read Council transcripts, you wouldn’t be asking that question,” she informed him with a grimace. “They’re hideously long.”

Bellomi remembered quite a few transcripts that he’d packed into the bags. They
had
rather been on the thick side. But that made him worry. “So…you have to read through the whole transcript to know if there’s information in there you need or not?”

“Not necessarily. There’s a conclusion of the trial at the very end of the transcript. I read that first to see if there’s anything vital recorded.” This sounded vastly reassuring until Hana added dryly, “
Then
I have to read the whole transcript.”

Right. Like any other thing worth doing, it took a lot of time to do it. Bellomi shouldn’t have expected any differently. The only real thing that sped this process along was Hana’s reading speed. She could read faster than any other person he’d heard tale of.

Axelrad and Morgan sat the bags down near the table and gave him casual salutes before leaving, no doubt going for the rest of the load still outside. With that out of the way, he knew they had firm plans to go directly to the kitchen as they’d all missed a meal doing this errand. Bellomi turned, intending to join them, when his beautiful girlfriend pointed an authoritative finger at him and said, “I will not do this by myself. Sit.”

From the other side of the table, Aren started laughing. “She has a good point, son. This is too mammoth of a task for any one person to handle. Really, in a normal state of affairs, I’d assign a
committee
to do this sort of work.”

And here he’d dumped the whole responsibility of it on her and only helped out when it was convenient. Bellomi, feeling more than a little guilty, gave a resigned shrug and sat in the nearest chair.

Hana turned to her king with a smile and sweet tone. “Which is why I humbly,
strongly
request your help as well. Your Majesty.”

Aren, caught off-guard, blinked at her twice before a rueful grin spread over his face. “Alright. I suppose it’s only fair, since it’s my mess you’re helping to clean up. Hand me some court transcripts. I know what I’m looking for in those.”

Thank all gods and fairies for small miracles. Bellomi promptly dove his hands into one of the bags and drew out a sizable pile of transcripts, which he set in front of his father with a
thump
against the table.

“Hana, can’t I at least eat first?” he pleaded with her, eyes longingly eyeing the door. “I haven’t had anything for at least five hours.”

“Hmmm,” she looked up absently from a tome in front of her, already in her research mode. “And you’re still growing, too. It’s probably not wise to skip meals. Go ahead. None of this is going anywhere.”

“Bless you.” He didn’t waste a second in beating a hasty retreat toward the kitchen.

“Bring back snacks!” his father called after him.

~ ~ ~

Sevana joined them later that night by coming in without knocking, flinging herself into an empty chair and putting her boots up casually on the table. Bellomi’s attention had so centered on the list in his hands, he actually didn’t notice her arrival until he felt the
thump thump
of her boots landing on the wood table. He looked up with a casual curiosity and paused once he got a good look at her.

Most of the time Sevana just sailed through life, going along at her own pace, and didn’t let other people’s anxieties affect her. But he had seen her at her wit’s end a few times, mostly when some project hadn’t gone as expected, or when she pulled an all-nighter to finish something. This looked to be a combination of all three. Even with her feet up on the table, she hunched in her chair, as if keeping proper posture would simply be too tiring. Her head rested in one hand, masking her eyes, hair escaping the messy knot she had at the nape of her neck. Instead of looking eighteen or so, she looked twenty-eight.

Aren, proving to be wise beyond his years, simply offered her a tray of different sweets. She took two without a word and popped both of them in her mouth. Bellomi, knowing how she preferred her tea, fixed a cup of it from the pot sitting in the center of the table and silently handed her that as well. She drained it in one long pull before handing it back for a refill, which he obliged by doing. Only after she had taken a long sip from the second cup did she finally speak.

“Congratulations, Bel. Since I first received my Artifactor’s license and escaped Master, yours has been the most complex problem I’ve ever had to solve.”

He mentally went through about three responses before settling on the safest one. “I’m sorry?”

“Not your fault,” she sighed, finally looking up to meet his eyes. Her mouth still formed a grumpy pout which clearly said that even though she didn’t blame him, that didn’t mean she didn’t harbor ill will for
somebody
. “The curse you’re under is complex enough, but it’s compounded because of the stasis spell as well. Pierpoint’s alterations gave me a loophole of sorts to work through but that doesn’t mean he made it
easy.
”

Pierpoint had gone off last night to do a thorough examination of the magical protective guards and wards that were on the palace, all for the purpose of exploiting their weakness if the need arose. Bellomi felt a fleeting sense of relief that the Wizard wasn’t within arm’s reach of Sevana just then. She’d have likely strangled him if he had been.

Aren cleared his throat slightly. “Dare I ask if you found a solution?”

“I did, yes.” She drained the cup again before setting it down in the saucer, finally taking her feet off the table so she could sit forward and lean against the table’s surface instead. “I’ll double check my math tomorrow. In fact, I might have Sarsen double check it for me. I’m sick of looking at it at this point.”

Gauging her expression and tone, Bellomi thought it might be safe enough to ask. “So what was the solution?”

“I couldn’t use anything with fire to it, not without risking strengthening the stasis spell on you, so I ended up with…” she stopped abruptly and eyed the other two unabashedly listening in. “I think Bel will follow this, after all the things I’ve taught him, but you two won’t.”

“Explain it in simple terms,” Hana requested with a winsome smile.

Sevana let out a growl, slumping back in her chair. “Don’t wanna.”

“I’ll cook tonight in exchange,” Hana riposted, smile not slipping.

The Artifactor paused and looked at the other woman with weighing eyes, judging which would be more hassle, slaving over a stove or having to explain something to two different magical ignoramuses. Cooking lost because she shrugged in surrender. “Fine. Do you two even understand the basics of magical power?”

“Elements of the world, mystical power, and contrived power,” Aren rattled off as if borrowing an answer from a textbook.

“Very good.” For once, Sevana didn’t sound sarcastic, just relieved she didn’t have to explain
that
too. “And you also understand that some elements combine very well with each other and others don’t combine at all? Excellent. Alright, this won’t be as difficult to explain, then. Of the possible elements that I could use to form an incantation, I am severely limited by not only Bel’s curse but his stasis spell. I can’t use anything that has the same elements as the strongest base of either spell. So I can’t use anything that uses wind, because of the curse spell, and I can’t use anything that uses fire because of the stasis spell. Those two elements, unfortunately, are the ones that would combine the easiest with water.”

“Because they’re both fluid in nature,” Bellomi offered. “Like water is.”

Sevana waved a hand in his direction, indicating that he had made a valid point, and continued. “Unfortunately, the other elements that I know would have the best reaction against both spells don’t blend well with this sort of incantation. This is a written incantation, something inscribed into the air, and so I can’t use any element that has a physical form to it.”

An air-inscribed incantation? Oh, like the one she’d used to break his father’s curse. Right. She had simply used a wand to draw the symbols and words of the spell into the air, and it glowed and stayed rigid until she had released it. Truly, he couldn’t imagine how she would use wood or earth in that sort of incantation.

“I’m also limited to the elements that I have on hand or can easily gain access to. Some elements are impossible to attain. Even an Artifactor might lay hands on it once in a lifetime. That doesn’t even bring into consideration the individual power levels of each element and how well it will combine with each other. With everything taken into account, I was left with exactly these elements to work with: rainbow mist, untouched snowflake, moonlit water, fairy’s kiss, stillness of a moonless night, moonlight and captured sunlight.”

Bellomi followed this closely, frowning as she ticked off elements on her fingers. “I thought you said that spells are stronger when you combine different elements. Wouldn’t adding other types of water weaken the overall strength of the incantation?”

“If only you had some level of magical ability,” Sevana sighed with true regret. “You have a wonderful mind for being an Artifactor. Yes, Bel, you’re perfectly correct. In reality, I only have fairy’s kiss, stillness of a moonless night, moonlight and captured sunlight that I can use. And I hesitate to use sunlight because it leans towards the properties of fire. Fairy’s kiss, of course, is too strong. It would overpower the dragon’s spout and completely mess up the overall power balance we’ve worked so hard for. In the end, I will use stillness of a moonless night and moonlight to inscribe the incantation.”

Bellomi understood the basic mechanics of spells but he certainly didn’t know enough to rattle off the power levels of each individual element. “Err…so combined with the dragon’s water spout, how powerful is the spell?”

“It will have a strength of twelve,” she responded, finally looking satisfied, although her smug grin had an overall feeling of fatigue to it. “Because the base element is water, which works against wind, it will act even more effectively. More than strong enough to break the spell you’re under. Pierpoint can just remove the stasis spell later.”

Aren rubbed at his chin, studying her from the corner of his eye. “Didn’t you have all of this figured out before you went to bargain with the dragon?”