“Ah, you work for our redoubtable gadgeteer? He did sterling work on my home – or his employees did, at any rate.” Alses paused, considering. She’d never really given much thought as to the craftspeople who’d worked on Elysium Hall, still less to the artifice that brought piping hot water in elegant profusion and took away the wastes to Syna-alone-knew-where, but a moment’s reflection told her that the only possible business to have done the work was Lucis & Lucis. She knew them by reputation, really; most everyone in the starry city knew that they were past masters of water and its control. Who else, then, would have been entrusted with the commission?
Alses chuckled, the sound low and gentle. “If you’ve been working so much you haven’t been able to get out, I shouldn’t think you have much to fear, when it comes to your position. Diligence is much prized here. Skill is important, true,” she added, in the spirit of truthfulness, “But much can be taught in that field, at least, either by formal instruction or else in the crucible of experience. Finding a truly dedicated person, now that is a prize worth having! If you’re a metalsmith with Lucis, then I daresay Aska Terras at Touch of Fire is green with envy; she’s been bemoaning the lack of really hardworking apprentices for as long as we’ve known her.”
A light shrug; Alses was keeping the conversation gentle and easygoing – gathered around a foreign fireside with one of Zulrav’s masterpieces raging outside was decidedly not the place for deep debate or charged argument.
“In any case, devices-” she was pleased to remember the term “-aren’t really my field, but that doesn’t mean we don’t respect those who can make them, everything from the incidental little civilities like clocks right up to the pumps that make life on our peaks possible. Do give our regards to your master when you next see him, hmm?”
The storm – grumbling merrily away in the background – chose that moment to reannounce its immediate presence, doing so with a furious barrage of thunder and lightning. Flashes of searing light turned everything dramatically monochrome, with the world split between the bright white of overloaded senses screaming and an impenetrable, inscrutable darkness.
A split-tick behind the visual assault there came the full-throated roar of the thunder as Zulrav gave full vent to his spleen, shattering the air with the sound. Ornea flinched, and badly. It was hard to tell in the storm-light, but Alses thought she’d definitely gone a few shades paler, too, her muscles tensed and vibrating under her skin.
This was food for thought indeed – Alses knew that Wind Reach was also in Kalea, and the vague impression of the place that she’d got so far was of a fellow mountain city. Surely, then, the Inarta should have been used to storms?
“Zulrav enjoys showing off, doesn’t he?” Alses asked, mostly-rhetorically. It was really more of a segue to her next sentence than anything else. “We needn’t worry, though; storms have been battering themselves into impotence on Lhavit for five hundred years.”
A wry half-smile – Alses was thinking of her own office and the Council Chamber high in the Radiant Tower, and how that was now surely in the very heart of the tempest. “The Towers are tallest; they bear the brunt of it each time, and the skyglass is divine enough that lightning bolts and wind and rain have little effect. We are – quite literally – safe as houses in here.”
She leaned back in her chair, projecting to the very best of her ability a sense of easement and relaxation – Alses had noticed, in meeting and conclaves with important people and their minions, and indeed in clashes between two equally-matched powers, how every facet of a powerful person’s mien: their demeanour, their actions, the way they spoke, even the way they held themselves, could have a dramatic impact on others.
Exuding the right impression could – along with other skills, admittedly – bring a stormy meeting to tranquillity, or stir an informal party into a bubbling cauldron of rage and recrimination. Given that she was one of the very few Ethaefal that actually resided in the shining city – it had been built by Ethaefal, steered by the celestial race, but few of them actually cared to settle and congregate together – she was already accorded a certain status, and only adding to that was her current position.
Better, now, to seem calm and confident, composed and with faith in the city’s architects, than anything else. “And speaking of the Towers…we might not cover the very broadest spectrum of magic in this city, but what disciplines we embrace we’re good at. I shouldn’t like our reimancers to try and stop a storm dead; that, I think, would be beyond mortal artifice, but the Dawn Tower is certainly well-equipped to handle any more minor problem.” A brief frown flashed across her face, before it cleared back to beatific calm. “They had better be,” Alses murmured distractedly, “Or I will know why.”
Alses chuckled, the sound low and gentle. “If you’ve been working so much you haven’t been able to get out, I shouldn’t think you have much to fear, when it comes to your position. Diligence is much prized here. Skill is important, true,” she added, in the spirit of truthfulness, “But much can be taught in that field, at least, either by formal instruction or else in the crucible of experience. Finding a truly dedicated person, now that is a prize worth having! If you’re a metalsmith with Lucis, then I daresay Aska Terras at Touch of Fire is green with envy; she’s been bemoaning the lack of really hardworking apprentices for as long as we’ve known her.”
A light shrug; Alses was keeping the conversation gentle and easygoing – gathered around a foreign fireside with one of Zulrav’s masterpieces raging outside was decidedly not the place for deep debate or charged argument.
“In any case, devices-” she was pleased to remember the term “-aren’t really my field, but that doesn’t mean we don’t respect those who can make them, everything from the incidental little civilities like clocks right up to the pumps that make life on our peaks possible. Do give our regards to your master when you next see him, hmm?”
The storm – grumbling merrily away in the background – chose that moment to reannounce its immediate presence, doing so with a furious barrage of thunder and lightning. Flashes of searing light turned everything dramatically monochrome, with the world split between the bright white of overloaded senses screaming and an impenetrable, inscrutable darkness.
A split-tick behind the visual assault there came the full-throated roar of the thunder as Zulrav gave full vent to his spleen, shattering the air with the sound. Ornea flinched, and badly. It was hard to tell in the storm-light, but Alses thought she’d definitely gone a few shades paler, too, her muscles tensed and vibrating under her skin.
This was food for thought indeed – Alses knew that Wind Reach was also in Kalea, and the vague impression of the place that she’d got so far was of a fellow mountain city. Surely, then, the Inarta should have been used to storms?
“Zulrav enjoys showing off, doesn’t he?” Alses asked, mostly-rhetorically. It was really more of a segue to her next sentence than anything else. “We needn’t worry, though; storms have been battering themselves into impotence on Lhavit for five hundred years.”
A wry half-smile – Alses was thinking of her own office and the Council Chamber high in the Radiant Tower, and how that was now surely in the very heart of the tempest. “The Towers are tallest; they bear the brunt of it each time, and the skyglass is divine enough that lightning bolts and wind and rain have little effect. We are – quite literally – safe as houses in here.”
She leaned back in her chair, projecting to the very best of her ability a sense of easement and relaxation – Alses had noticed, in meeting and conclaves with important people and their minions, and indeed in clashes between two equally-matched powers, how every facet of a powerful person’s mien: their demeanour, their actions, the way they spoke, even the way they held themselves, could have a dramatic impact on others.
Exuding the right impression could – along with other skills, admittedly – bring a stormy meeting to tranquillity, or stir an informal party into a bubbling cauldron of rage and recrimination. Given that she was one of the very few Ethaefal that actually resided in the shining city – it had been built by Ethaefal, steered by the celestial race, but few of them actually cared to settle and congregate together – she was already accorded a certain status, and only adding to that was her current position.
Better, now, to seem calm and confident, composed and with faith in the city’s architects, than anything else. “And speaking of the Towers…we might not cover the very broadest spectrum of magic in this city, but what disciplines we embrace we’re good at. I shouldn’t like our reimancers to try and stop a storm dead; that, I think, would be beyond mortal artifice, but the Dawn Tower is certainly well-equipped to handle any more minor problem.” A brief frown flashed across her face, before it cleared back to beatific calm. “They had better be,” Alses murmured distractedly, “Or I will know why.”
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