The Fourth Gate: Chapter Fourteen

Satya’s form flowed back into the necklace, and I looked at Kiran. 

“I hope that if we meet in the arena, you can at least hold back my name, at least somewhat. I wear a mask not just as a trick, but also to hopefully give me a bit more privacy in my personal life.”

“I’ll try, but if it comes down to using your name or losing, I won’t lose,” Kiran said. “But… I’ll try and whisper it.” 

I pressed my lips together, but nodded. I couldn’t fault Kiran being willing to do anything to win. I just hoped that I wouldn’t need to face Kiran in the arena. Or perhaps I should hope that I did. After all, if I fought him, it meant I wasn’t fighting Ivy or Cai Dao. 

“I’ll try and start putting together a plan,” I said. “After the tournament is over, I’ll be heading to the Sepulcher. Maybe two of them, I’m not sure. If you want to ride along, you can.” 

Kiran blinked and tilted his head, earring clinking gently as he did. 

“Why would you trust me in a sepulcher? We’ve just met.” 

I gestured to the wards in the hallway and arched an eyebrow at him. 

“You built those in, what, sixteen hours? If you could set up some defenses around an exit point, we could sleep in a demiplane without even needing to worry about a gatecrawling spell or the like. You’re a powerful and competent blood mage, and you seem like a decent person.”

“Satya was right,” Kiran said. “You really are too naive for how much power you have.” 

“Maybe, maybe not,” I responded, shrugging. “Time will tell. Think about it. I might see about asking Ming, Dario, or Corra. I’m definitely asking Ivy and Liz, since I know them. My brother’s a decent defensive mage, and he might come along? I can’t really say one way or another. My partner’s a healer, and he’s coming. Dawn and Dusk, of course…”

“You seem to make friends easily,” Kiran said quietly, and I shrugged halfheartedly. I didn’t even know if I’d consider anyone but my brother, Liz, and Ivy friends.

“Maybe. Anyways, I’ve got to go get some things, so I’ll talk to you later. I want to consult with my mentors.”

Kiran rose and escorted me out, and I wondered if that was something to do with his wards, or if he was just being polite. Either way, I started to turn to the lifts, then turned back around and walked to the fifth door and opened it. I’d gotten to see Kiran’s apartment, but I didn’t know what mine looked like. 

My entry hall, kitchen, and living room were all very comparable to Kiran’s: glass, marble, steel, silver, and an uncomfortable modernity that didn’t really speak to me. I branched off from the living room, following a short hall to a set of three doors that led to a guest room, a bathroom, and a main bedroom with its own ensuite. Even the guest bedroom was uncomfortably lush, with fluffy white sheets that made me think of clouds, a carpet so thick that my feet sunk into it, and an enchanted window that gave a view of the city outside, despite the guest room not being physically capable of looking outside. The main bedroom and bathroom were even worse, the canopy bed shining with a sort of luxury that went too far, turning into ostentatiousness, at least in my opinion. I glanced around, then shrugged and left the room behind. 

I might officially be the owner of the apartment, and owning property in another country would play a certain kind of hell on my taxes, but it wasn’t my home. Even if I ascended to Magi, I couldn’t see myself being comfortable living in a space like that. Maybe the kitchen? I’d get good use out of that, at least, but there the luxury leant itself to practicality – six burners meant two could be changed into a griddle, while keeping four. A double oven could be used for cooking multiple things when I hosted get togethers. But the rest? I’d definitely need to redecorate, at the very least. Overbearing opulence wasn’t for me. Who needed three shower heads? I took lift down, then left and teleported away, before sliding into Dusk. 

“How’s it going?” I asked, looking over the stone basin. It looked like a hot spring, or some other natural set of pools, but I could sense some of the energetic arrays around it shifting, like geothermal vents to heat it through the natural processes of the realm. Just as, if not more interesting to me, was the fact that it seemed to be drawing water in from the lake through some geomantic processes I didn’t fully understand. Dusk whistled that it was going well, but we’d really see when the time came for experimentation. 

“If you can get things growing right, and can afford a good enchanter, then you might be able to arrange for it to be a continual bath,” the old witch said as she scratched symbols into the sides of the basin. “That’s what old sects do. Energetically enriched water flows through the plants, guided by enchantments, and filters into the bath. Dried things usually need replacing and other enchantments, but it’s doable.” 

“You seem coherent today,” I congratulated. Kene’s grandmother squinted at me, then turned and went back to scratching enchantments into the bowl. 

“You’re just lucky advancement resources aren’t regulated as strictly as what you bring into the arena itself. We’re giving you a lot of help. Some might see that as cheating.” 

Dusk piped up, saying Kene and Meadow were ready, and she waved, opening a portal to them. Kene waved as the pair stepped in, carrying a large bag stuffed with various things. I moved over to help start unpacking, explaining how things had gone with Kiran. 

“Did you know that immortal zhi mushrooms aren’t even magical?” Kene complained as I picked up a packet of mushrooms. “They do have a lot of beneficial health properties, but it’s a balancing component, like echinacea in a Mossford style healing potion.” 

“They’re just bitter because it took them a full twenty minutes to find them in the store,” Meadow said with a chuckle. “Could have asked for help, but no….”

“Ugh,” Kene said, then held up a small bag. “Fresh heart-goji berries weren’t in season, so we bought some dried ones. It’s not in the recipe, but the arrays are preserved well enough.” 

“I’ll look into purchasing some if I get the chance,” I said. “The bushes? Trees?” Plants, whatever. Then we can rotate them through the seasons and have them on hand.” 

“The particular breed of silverthorn plant that gave body-empowering sap went extinct almost two centuries ago,” Meadow said, holding up a vial of a sparkling silver substance. “But, since the recipe records the arrays that were empowered for its use, we can approximate. This is a spirit silverthorn, but if we mix it with a leaf of healer’s heart and some vigor-camas, we ought to be able to get an approximation of the right thing.” 

“How lovely of them, to give 

“Ha!” the witch cried. “Ha! Half the plants I used to alchemize within my soups, stews, and pottages went extinct before your grandfather’s grandfather was a tree! The flour I need for the perfect vanilla sponge cake? Seven hundred and fifty years ago, the last was taken and eaten!”

I glanced at her, unsure if she was actually talking about flour and vanilla sponge cake, or if it was something else. That was always the problem with her – it might be literal, it might be a metaphor, it might be her words being jumbled by whatever had happened to her, or it might be utter nonsense for the sake of nonsense. I couldn’t tell. 

“You should also look into getting warm-desert ginseng, viridian milkvetch, and windy-plateau codonopsis,” Meadow said. “Might be worth visiting the sect’s farmers and seeing if you can make a trade.” 

I nodded as the witch hopped out of the tub, and I began to pour ungated mana into the enchantments. They lit up like a massive cauldron, and I began to manifest the scum on the surface of the bowl as I drew excess energy out of the water. As I did, Kene slowly handed me the seventeen handfuls of, mana-grass, thirteen star anise pods, nine handfuls of willow bark, and two spoons of dried, powdered turmeric root. 

“This is so… estimation-ey,” I groused, and the witch threw back her head and laughed. Even Meadow let out a slight chuckle, shaking her head. 

“That’s the way many old recipes are,” she said. “I expect that, in time, you’ll be able to adjust to getting it right by the weight and power of the reaction in your mana senses.” 

“At least it’s not a tipped tapped trip trap!” the witch said in a sing-song voice, and Meadow explained.

“Many older alchemists were paranoid of thieves, and thus would add or remove steps, components, or time in the written recipe. The kind of things that a clever thief might try, only to wind up melting their body in a vat of acid, or making a normally slightly chalky potion bind to the throat, suffocating them.” 

“You’re sure this one doesn’t have anything like that?” I asked, eyeing the bath with sudden wariness. The mortar and pestle I was using to mash together the sap, vigor-camas, heart-goji berries, head of garlic, mint leaves, ginger, and peony root did smell really funky.

“Yes,” Meadow said gently. “If they did something like that, the sect would have made a fool of themselves in front of the entire world.” 

“The Storm King would execute the entire sect leadership for such a mistake,” the old witch said seriously. “He’s gotten merciful in his old age.” 

Meadow’s hands trembled at that, and she swore under her breath, her hands shaking. I gave her a gentle smile and dropped the bowl of mash into the bath, before starting to grate the rehmanna root, fresh warm-desert ginseng, viridian-milkvetch, and windy-plateau codonopsis. Searching for a new topic, I glanced at the basin of alchemical smelling water, and then at Meadow, Kene, and the witch. 

“How long is half the burning of a joss stick? I’m not familiar.” 

“Nowdays, most are standardized for about twenty minutes of burning time, sometimes more or less depending on the brand, but in the time this recipe was written, it could have been anywhere from fifteen minutes to almost a full hour,” Kene said. “I’m gonna guess we should wait about ten minutes and see.” 

“You want the magic mostly bound to the waters,” the witch said, winking her left eye, then the right eye, as if she was blinking but her eyelids were out of sync. “But about a quarter of them open and unbonded, to bind to the new ingredients, and create the long chains of spell reactions.” 

I grunted my understanding and set a timer in my Internal Pocketwatch, while keeping my senses partially focused on the bath. It wound up taking closer to fifteen minutes before the witch judged it acceptably bonded, without being over-bound, and I added in the grated materials, alongside the mushrooms, and two lotuses, fetched from the lake. 

“The recipe calls for three,” I pointed out, but Meadow shook her head. 

“Your lake water is already exceptionally mineral rich, in part thanks to the fact that it has so many mercurial lotuses growing in it. You only need two.” 

I sighed, but added the two, mentally complaining about the imprecision in the recipe being made even worse than it already was. The components slowly bound together, forming the long, thin chains of energetic empowerment that the witch had mentioned, and I watched, fascinated. 

“Too much minerality, even still,” Kene said, though I didn’t know how they could tell. 

“A bit. But Malachi also has made enough changes to his organs and bones that the telluric energy should at least be partially carried over,” the witch responded. 

As if waiting for her permission, the final array clicked into place just then, completing a circular swirl of power, like a massive pill or enormous potion. The waters began to glow a greenish-blue color.