The fertile grassland that I’d been traveling through rose up into the mountains that I had seen for weeks. I’d never seen the Himalayas, but I had biked over the Alps once and often hiked through the Appalachians and Adirondacks, and these towering rock faces put those smaller hills that I had known on Earth to shame.

The road I was on followed the base of the mountains for a few days passing through mining and farming villages in the foothills. These were areas that when the season was right were sometimes cloaked in shadows for extra hours every day as the light of the sun was blocked by titanic sierras of stone.

There were few trees here, and the earth was bare. Unlike in Larkin where the winds were mostly blocked by the Black Granite Mountain which sheltered the city from the ravages of the weather, here the mountains acted like a wind tunnel concentrating and buffering the breeze sometimes into hurricane force Chinook gales that ripped across the land.

Eventually, I reached the place which, according to the people I asked and the maps I looked at during my trip, was the pass through the mountains. This was my destination.

At the base of the pass was a town and a fort, where I spent the night in a comfortable inn. And in the morning I got dressed up in my Inquisitor uniform and presented myself to the commanding officer of the fort.

“Seeker Lynx Elm reporting and asking permission to enter the pass,” I said.

“Sheet. A little young to be a seeker aren’t you?” The commander said.

“I don’t know. I’m the first seeker I’ve ever met.” Which was true. There had been seekers at my house that had helped my father, and they’d generally been older. Sixteen or Seventeen. But technically I had never been introduced to any of them.

“Do you even have access to your status? How can you expect to go into battle without access to your status? It boggles the mind.”

“My maturing day was a couple of weeks ago,” I admitted. “Still my orders are clear. I am to join up with the main force and seek a Lord General Aram Heron Sequoia.”

“Aram’s a good woman. I just don’t see the point of sending a kid into a battle zone. Why don’t I write to your commanding officer to have you stationed here? You can drill with my troops and help me guard the border for a few years. You’ll get a bit of experience, watch a fight or two; it would be good for you. Now that I think of it let me know who you report to, and I will write a letter right now.”

He pulled out some stationary, and a pen then looked expectantly at me.

“While I thank you for your consideration, from my experience, I seriously doubt my father Knight General Harrion Wolverine Oak would take kindly to me being garrisoned away from ‘a learning experience’ as he would put it.”

The commander put away his paper and pen. “Well ain’t that the fuck. I’ve never met your father, but I’ve heard he is a stern man. I don’t envy you. You should know that there is at least one Pyromancer up there. I don’t suppose you are fire-proof, are you? We are constantly losing troops. Good troops. Experienced troops. It is no place for a boy.”

“I hadn’t been aware it was so dangerous. I admit I don’t know anything about where I’m going or what I’m getting into.” I said.

“Shit son. Of course, we keep this situation quiet. We’ve been fighting Argran more off than on for nearly a hundred years, and have shit to show for it. They have effectively managed to stop the Empire every time we take to the field.”

“How?” I asked.

“Dungeon Cores, son. Dungeon Cores. Argran is a shit poor kingdom. But they’ve got the city-state of Hisop backing them, and everyone knows the free city of Hisop has a primordial dungeon sitting under their pretty little feet. Hisop don’t want the Empire at their doorstep, so they provide just enough cores and trained mages to their next-door neighbor Argran to keep the Empire out.”

This was a new concept to me. “A primordial dungeon? I don’t think I’ve ever heard of one of those.”

The commander got up from behind his desk and walked to the window to look out over the field of soldiers training below.

“I don’t hold much with religion. Too much craziness, not enough sense my old man used to say. But one of the crazier religions that I hear is going around has it that people weren’t always here. According to this kooky gospel humans were once a kind of goblin, and millions of years before that maybe a kind of squirrel. Supposedly we ‘evolved.’ Whatever that means.

He turned away from the window and faced me.

“A primordial dungeon is a dungeon that is so old, it older even than people. I’ve heard tell that if you got a really powerful adventuring team. I mean top notch, and even then are willing to lose most of the team as you dive deep enough into the dungeon in Hisop you can find floors where there are nothing but giant lizard-like creatures. If you manage to get even deeper, according to wizards who scry out these things, there are entire floors underwater with nothing but crabs and slime.

“There are even some crazy Gnomes that think that all life began in Hisop. That all of us, you and I, are just descendants of monsters that managed to escape the Hisop dungeon.”

I thought about it for a bit.

“I’ve been in a dungeon. Well technically two, maybe. I think. One in the wild with my ex-mentor that people said was around 75 years old, and in the mountain in Larkin, which I’m not sure if it counts or not. What’s the big deal about the one in Hisop that makes them so powerful.” I said.

“Shit son, at your age, you ain’t messing around. I’d like to give your ex-mentor a piece of my mind, taking a boy into a dungeon. But what’s done is done.

“To answer your question. It’s the core that matters. One core really powerful core is like a million swords.

The Commander sat down in his chair behind his desk.

“A mage can use a core to store mana, or a spell, or a group of spells. A core is the only way to permanently add magic to something. Even works if you grind the core up into dust. Some of the best swords have core dust in the metal. If you got some mind magic, you can overpower the smarts of a core force it to be the brains in a permanent enchantment. If the core is old enough to have some wild magic, then anybody holding that core can use that knack.

“And that’s the reason why Argran can keep the might of the empire out year after year. That primordial dungeon in Hisop has thousands of smaller dungeons hidden in it. Some of the dungeons, if you go deep enough are thousands or tens of thousands of years old and even have dungeons of their own inside of them.

“Hisop trains harvesting teams almost from birth to go into the dungeon and retrieve cores. They have mages dedicated to scrying hidden sections of a dungeon to gather, identify and catalog every bit of information possible before the adventuring team goes in. They have construction Mages who build exact mockups of the places where the adventuring team will go, and summoners who can bring forth the exact creatures the adventuring team will face.”

The commander looked at me directly as if imparting something important. Then he looked away.

“Unlike our Empire that just farms Cores until they are 10 or 15 years old, or has groups wandering the countryside hoping to get lucky and find a dungeon. Hisop has a multitude of dungeons right underneath their feet. And even before any Hisop teams goes in on a dive, they will have spent six months, memorizing and fighting every possible encounter that they are likely to face. And they do it over and over until their execution is flawless.”

“Hisop has a wealth of cores. Which is why the Empire wants to take them over. They know it, and we know it. Which is why Hisop, gives the kingdom Argran enough cores and money to keep the Empire out. Argran is their buffer nation.”

“Right now there is a one mother fucking Pyromancer that we know of. And probably five or six cored up users we don’t know of.”

“Of course, our Empire undoubtedly has three or four cored users up there too. Maybe even someone with a knack or two, though I doubt it. It makes the front an explosive area to be. The one Pyromancer that we know about is bad enough, but if people start coming out of the shadows and begin throwing all that power around, all hell can break loose. Whole divisions lost in instants.”

“Right now it is pretty much a stalemate, but if someone gets nervous, who knows what shit will go down.”

I thought about it for a while. The Commander seemed like a reasonable person. But in reality, I didn’t have any choice. Until I could figure out how to hide from the scrying eyes of whoever was looking for me until I could decide if it was safe to get status magic, until I could break away from my Father and this Empire, my path had been chosen long ago.

“I don’t think I have much of choice. But thank you for the information and the warning.” I said.

“Your funeral.” The Commander shrugged. “I hate to see it in someone who has such promise, but not much I can do if you insist on rushing into the shit storm up ahead.”

That night I slept in the battalion’s barracks, and the morning I ate in the mess with the troops. The food was simple and filling.

There was nobody to see me off in the morning. The guards at the gate into the pass handed me some paper and said “Sir, the Commander thought you would need these. It is permission to be in the pass. He also said you should keep your uniform on at all time.”

“Thank you,” I said. And started riding up the incline. The walls here had been carved out of the stone. Sheer sheets of metamorphic rock dozens of feet high in places. While this must have been a natural path, Earth mages must have expanded it over the centuries. Flattening and widening the path first for wagon travel, and then eventually for the rapid movement of troops.

Built into the rock face in places there were towers and turrets, and even choke points and fortifications. On the first day through the pass, I was stopped three times at walled fortresses and asked to present the papers I’d been given earlier that morning.

I slept that night in another barracks and began making my way through the mountains again the next day. The path rose steadily, and the air became thinner. Two more days passed, and I passed through eight more towering fortresses. There was a slow trickle of supplies and mule trains moving up and down the road and every once in a while I would spot a wary goat high up in the cliffs or a raptor flying overhead.

I did stop a few times to collect some plants that I’d only read about in Petunia’s books. Herbs that clung to the sides of the cliff faces, feeding off the rain and occasional spring.

But for the most part, the trip was lonely and desolate. Rock chips and dirt and even bare expanses of stone for miles on end mixed with lichen and patches of grass in places.

At long last, the pass opened up into a mountainous valley that had probably once been verdant and fertile but was now crisscrossed with trenches, muck and barbed wire. There was fire burning everywhere, especially focused down the center of the valley. And sometimes fresh gouts of flame burst white hot in random places along the line of fire.

There was yet another fortress at the entrance to the valley. This time the biggest I’d seen since the one days ago when I’d talked to the commander.

At the main gates to the fortress, I presented my papers and was ushered up to Lord General Aram Heron Sequoia’s waiting room. Where I sat.

And sat.

And sat.

Three hours later an aid came out and said that the general didn’t have time to see me that day and could I come back first thing the next day. I agreed and was led to the mess hall and then to the local barracks which was much bigger than any of the ones I had seen so far.

After I dropped my gear off in the footlocker of the cot which had been assigned to me, I took a quick tour of the fortress. Or at least as much of a tour of the areas where I was permitted to go.

From a barbican facing into the valley, I could get a clearer picture of the entire battle. Looking around me I saw that there were similar observation platforms where I could see officers standing and pointing at various things.

Every once in a while a young boy around my age or maybe a little older would run through the gates and down into the valley. Or one would run back up from the valley. And head into the fortress keep.

Other than the runners and clusters of people gathered in semi-permanent camps well back from the trenches, there wasn’t a lot of movement down below, though I could see lots and lots of people. Too many people for me to count.

As I looked across the valley, I saw another fortress on the Argran side blocking their exit from the valley. It too was hewn out of the raw blocks of mountainous rock and looked massive and imposing.

Down below I found a makeshift hospital with wounded soldiers and seeing that I didn’t have anything to do for the rest of the day, I went over to one of the medics on duty.

“Excuse me,” I said.

“Look I’m busy kid. If you have a message, leave it over on my desk. I will get to it eventually.”

“Ummm… No. I just got here and haven’t been assigned to anything yet.”

“And…” he said impatiently and not paying me any attention.

“Well, I was thinking that I know some healing spells and some basic herbalism. I was just wondering if you needed any help. I have to report to Lord General Aram Heron Sequoia tomorrow morning, but for the next little bit I’m free.”

The medic turned and looked at me. Thought for a bit. Then looked at me again.

“We don’t try to use a lot of spellcasting here. But if you want to waste the mana go to it.” He gestured to a soldier that was lying wrapped in bandages in bed.

The way he said it seemed like a test somehow, so I was curious about his reply and decided to see where this went.

I extended my life energy into the soldier and discovered that he was a she. There were burns all over her body, and her consciousness had been magically separated from the pain in her body and put into a happy place.

As I probed her body with my spells, I discovered that I could indeed heal her, but doing so would take nearly a quarter of my mana supply. The damage was simply too extensive.

But I saw that she had been stabilized by magic, and healing ointments and slow, mana efficient spells had been used on her. She would heal, but instead of healing in minutes like I had been taught, it would take her days, maybe even weeks to be fully recuperated.

“Why?” I said.

“Look around. This is just the first floor.” Said the medic.

I looked around and saw that the woman I had been probing with my spells was not the only person in the room wrapped in blankets. There were at least a hundred motionless bodies lying in beds and I could sense fire damage and smell burnt flesh everywhere.

“We have ten mages here with enough training in life magic to heal the army below. None of us have a healing knack. As far as I know, there hasn’t been one of those in the Empire in over two hundred years. After a battle sometimes we will have nearly 300 wounded barely holding on to their lives. And some battles last for days. If we all used up all our mana casting healing magic, we would be able to save maybe twenty or thirty people before all of us mages fell over exhausted.

“Instead, we stabilize, we take away the pain, and we heal slowly. A lot of us have even become proficient with surgery. We go in with a knife, use as little mana as possible to target heal the very worst wounds, and then let the body heal itself the rest of the way.”

“Still go ahead and heal Clissa here. I want to see what skills you have.”

I nodded. Everything he said made sense. So I began forming the runes for healing and burns and the whole body and then sent them into the woman we were standing over’s body. While I couldn’t see it happening, because her body was so well wrapped in band-aids, flakes of burnt skin began to fall off as newly grown flesh formed. To my mage sight, her life energies began to replenish while the death energies which had been present but kept at bay by the hospitals spells, withered and shrunk.

The medic nodded. “If Lord General Aram Heron Sequoia doesn’t have a use for you, I certainly can think of one.” He held out his hand and said “Tilde Jackalope Treant.”

And I shook his hand and said “Lynx Elm.”

He nodded. “I’m sure you are exhausted, if not from the healing then from your travels. Feel free to stop in at any time.”

I left the hospital room of the fortress and found my way back to the barracks. It was getting late and the night sky was dark and filled with stars. Mage lights attached to the walls lit up the courtyard making it easy to see where I was going and driving away the shadows.

Passing by the gate, I looked down into the valley and in the dark of the night sky I saw flames like missiles periodically shooting across the sky from the Empire side of the battlefield, and gouts of fire coming from the Argran side.

Tomorrow would be interesting.