Gandash looked around the library with furtive eyes. “Help me put these books back. I’ll explain back in the room.”

Xerxes and Bel helped him replace the books he’d piled onto the table, then the three of them padded through the dark hallways of the castle to the room that was their temporary abode. After barring the door, all three of them used their mage sight to examine the entire room closely, focusing on the walls and ceiling. From what they could tell, there was no indication someone could be spying on them.

Gathering around the small table against the wall, they leaned their heads close to each other.

“Here’s the thing,” Gandash said in a near-whisper. “All the books in the library are old. Like… really old. Okay, not every single one of them. But most. And when I say old, I mean like hundreds of years old or more. This isn’t the type of collection you easily build up, even over a matter of decades. And it’s not something you would usually see as a private collection. In a library or museum, maybe.”

Xerxes didn’t feel the need to question Gandash about how he knew this, nor did Bel. Gandash was a book person, and if he said the books were old, Xerxes trusted him.

“Even stranger,” Gandash continued, “most of them aren’t books you normally find in Isin. Lots are from Fal, and there are others whose origins I can’t speculate on. Either way, the point is that, number one, this collection didn’t originate in our parts. Maybe not even on Mannemid. I’m sure of it. And, number two, the collection is expensive. I mean, I’d guess it’s worth more than my dad’s entire life savings multiple times over. How does someone who claims to be so poor have a collection like this?”

Xerxes frowned for a moment in thought. “What do you think it means?”

“Maybe nothing,” Gandash said. “In fact, there’s probably a simple explanation that I haven’t thought of.”

“Maybe he inherited the books,” Bel said.

Gandash nodded. “Could be. He’s not from around here, right? His accent is off. Oh, there’s another thing I noticed. He has a lot of books about fighting.”

Xerxes’ ears perked up. “Fighting manuals?”

“Some. It stuck out to me because… I don’t know, it seemed weird. I’ve been in a lot of libraries back home. Not just the big library at the Academy, or the public libraries in the capital. Private libraries. Dad’s friends. I even got to see Mystic Aban Saddi’s den. But in all of that, I’ve never come across so many fighting books.”

“What do you mean when you say fighting?” Bel asked. “As in warfare? Strategy and tactics? Or…?”

“No,” Gandash answered firmly. “Actual fighting manuals. Some are treatises regarding martial arts styles and lineages. Now keep in mind, I only had a few hours, so all I could do was skim things. But I did find it strange.”

“Hold on,” Xerxes said, as a wild notion sprang into his mind from the various bits of information. “Let me think for a moment.”

Bel and Gandash looked at him expectantly. A minute passed in which he put puzzle pieces together in his head.

“Okay, Gandy, listen to this.” He explained about their inspection tour, and the boulder Captain Ishki was suspicious of. When he was finished, he said, “Obviously Master Ligish didn’t hire a bunch of High Seers to put that boulder there. Or any other group of mages for that matter. Nor did he bring engineers from the capital. But.” He grinned at his friends. “Those aren’t the only two types of people who could theoretically move a really heavy rock.”

The other two mages stared at him with blank expressions for a short time before Bel’s eyes lit up. “A martial adept could.”

“Martial adept?” Gandash said. He considered the possibility for a moment. “Unsighted individuals who strengthen their physical bodies, as opposed to practicing magic. They do get extra longevity, just not enough to live more than a few hundred years. But that could explain why he has such a good collection.”

“I heard they need a lot of resources for their training,” Bel added, “which is why they’re usually sponsored by one of the three kingdoms. If Ligish is doing this all on his own, it could explain why he’s so poor.”

“But martial adepts are more rare than mages,” Xerxes said. “I’ve heard Isin has two or three in the army, but I’ve never even seen any of them. Have you?”

Bel and Gandash both shook their heads.

“But they do exist,” Gandash said.

“Plus,” Bel added, “the Southern Sea is a big place, much of it being unexplored, for all intents and purposes. I’ve heard there are entire tribes of people who cultivate the martial arts. For all anybody knows, there could be a lot more martial adepts than we know.”

“He does have an odd accent,” Xerxes noted. “It would explain why he has a bunch of old books. Plus, a martial adept who was a hundred and twenty years old would be strong enough to move a boulder like that.”

“Okay,” Bel said, “let’s assume that we’re right. Master Ligish is from the Southern Sea, and is also a martial adept. He has some sort of secret facility hidden in a mountain cave, with the entrance sealed by that giant rock. Even if it’s true, there’s not anything the three of us can do to confirm or deny the theory. What’s more, someone like that could be a real threat to us.”

“True,” Xerxes said. “We should probably just report this to Captain Ishki and let her decide what to do. Worst case scenario, she might have us dig around the boulder. What engineers can accomplish with skill and mathematics in a matter of days, we and the soldiers could accomplish with grit and elbow grease.”

Gandash let out a huff. “I’m disappointed in the two of you. Have you forgotten about me?”

“What…?” Xerxes said.

Bel cocked her head. “Oh, damn. You’re not suggesting what I think you’re suggesting, are you Gan?”

Gandash grinned.

It took Xerxes a moment longer to get his mind going in the same direction as the other two. “Oh. Ohhhhhh. Shit, how could I have forgotten?” He reached out and clasped Gandash’s shoulder. “We have a Buhhu mage on our side.”

Bel was their healer, being a student of the Balatu order of magic. Xerxes was their fighter, with his focus on Asgagu magic. Comparing those two, Asgagu was considered slightly less difficult, and as a result, slightly more common. Balatu magic was slightly higher on the list in terms of difficulty. But Buhhu magic was the most difficult and rare of all. Gandash only practiced it because of strings pulled by his father to acquire rare and expensive tomes from higher starisles. He also paid a lot, both in cash and favors, to have Gandash tutored by Mystic Aban Saddi, one of the only other Buhhu mages on Mannemid, as well as visiting mages from other starisles. In addition to Gandash and Aban Saddi, there was only one other mage on the entire planet who had chosen to study Buhhu.

But there was another reason why Xerxes and Bel hadn’t initially suggested he used his spellcasting abilities to deal with the boulder, and that was the expensive nature of the components.

Buhhu magic was the magic of summoning. Not only were the runes archaic and difficult to master, but the components were rare and expensive. Each order of magic relied on one base ingredient that was augmented to create a unique component for each spell. For instance, all Asgagu spell components were built on a foundation of talcum powder. Balatu components needed beach sand. As for Buhhu components… they required a reduction of the blood of the creatures to be summoned.

“It’s too risky,” Bel said.

“She’s right,” Xerxes said. “You can’t afford to waste your spell components, Gandy. And that’s not to mention the melam. What happens if you cast the spell and it turns out there’s nothing behind the boulder?”

“Granted, that wouldn’t be ideal,” Gandash said. “But think of the glory if we’re the ones who blow the lid on this thing! We’ll be guaranteed a spot in a college off Mannemid. Besides, there’s something I didn’t tell either of you. Before we left, my dad got me two extra portions of blisterscale reduction and a Concentrated Melam Pill. I don’t want to waste them, but at the same time, there’s no reason for me hold back just because I’m worried about losing components or melam.”