They settled in, taking a wand each, and began to look over the different Sigils they held. The box the wands had been in held a mostly-empty, book, so Verdan removed a few unused pages and passed one to Magnus.

  The first task was to draw out every unique Sigil on the wand, which was simple enough to do, just time-consuming. That done, they compared pages, to see what might vary.

  “Interesting, there’s only one difference,” Verdan said, frowning slightly. “I wish we could activate them and see what they do, but with so many unknown Sigils…”

  “Perhaps just one at a time?” Magnus rubbed his jaw thoughtfully. “Just the one that has varied as well. We could set it onto a stone tablet and see what happens when we feed it Aether.”

  Verdan smiled, remembering his initial trials with the light Sigil and making the orbs to try and recreate the artefacts that they’d found in the ruins. Now that he understood how Sigils worked in far more detail, they should be able to skip much of that process.

  With that prior experience beneath his belt, Verdan quickly made small tablets of thin rock that he drew from the ground below them. Sigils needed to be drawn in groups of three, which Verdan was calling a triad, or at least, he thought they did.

  Looking at the wand again, he saw that there was a Sigil on its own, but the rest were grouped together in a diamond shape. That went against everything he knew about Sigils so far, but the bottom Sigil did look odd compared to the rest. Its design was far more complex, and yet somehow looser at the same time.

  Putting that aside, Verdan focused on the Sigil that was changing between the wands, carving an oversized triad of it onto each side of the small tablet. That would do for a test.

  “Ready?” Verdan asked, placing the tablet on the floor next to him and backing away a little. Magnus went to do the same before frowning and looking frustrated. “What is it?”

  “I’m working on my projection, but I’m not sure I could remotely add Aether. It doesn’t feel safe to leave a hand on it, either.”

  “No, absolutely not,” Verdan said quickly, happy to crush that instinct. It was one thing with a Sigil they knew to be harmless, but these were from weapons. Who knew what they could do. “Set it down and step back, I’ll try mine first, and then yours.”

  Verdan waited as Magnus nodded reluctantly and did as he asked. Once they were both safely away, he channelled Aether into his slate, giving it enough to cast a simple air blade.

  The inefficient design caused a good amount of Aether to be wasted, but there was enough for a very slight layer of frost to form around the stone. As he thought, this would be the descriptor of what the attack was, and the rest of the Sigils were the mechanism for creating it.

  Withdrawing what Aether he could, Verdan swapped to Magnus’s tablet next, which initially seemed to have no effect. Increasing the Aether supply, Verdan saw small flames begin to lick around the edge of the stone.

  “Huh. Good job I didn’t keep hold of it, then,” Magnus said as Verdan withdrew his Aether. “Fire and ice. A classic mix.”

  “True, and that makes me interested to see what else they have,” Verdan said, turning back to the box. “Let’s identify these other descriptors first, and then work on the other Sigils.”

  Magnus nodded eagerly and they went through the remaining wands, finding only two other alternatives. Testing them in the same manner, Verdan identified them as the Sigils for ‘Acid’ and ‘Force’ respectively. The latter was likely the source of the Aether darts he’d seen them use, though interestingly it simply gave a repelling aura of force to the tablet he added it to.

  The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

  There were some interesting defensive options there, but first, they needed to identify everything else.

  Unfortunately, it was growing late, and they had a long day ahead of them, so Verdan packed away the wands. They’d continue the following night to see what they could understand.

  -**-

  Three days passed in that manner, taking them firmly out of the Raging River and Raging Tempest lands. No doubt they were in an area at least nominally controlled by another Sect, but the lack of opposition they’d faced so far was heartening.

  The Vespa were keeping pace with them nicely as well. They would fly for several hours in the morning, rest somewhere for a time, then continue for a few more hours before resting overnight. Considering how much faster the Vespa were than Verdan’s heavily laden cart, those two stints were more than enough.

  Verdan had done some work to the cart on the second night, just to keep things moving, and he’d tried to speak with the Queen on the third, only to be gently but firmly turned away by Kraujas. The new Consort was fiercely protective of the Queen and was adamant that she be given plenty of rest while she continued to recover.

  With those minor tasks done and put off respectively, Verdan was able to give his full focus to the Sigils. They’d made good progress on the first night, and had since identified the Sigil for ‘Projectile’ but the other three Sigils were a mystery still. They’d tried each of them on a stone tablet, only for nothing to happen.

  The next step would be to start trying them with other Sigils, but the question was which Sigil to start with, and what effect to try to form with a triad.

  -**-

  “Govannon watch over us all,” Barb said in a breathy whisper, her eyes wide as she stared at something in the distance. Following her gaze, Verdan saw that the green woodland they’d been passing through had ended. In its place stretched out rows of dead trees, their fallen leaves rotting atop dead grass.

  Nothing living was in these woods, Verdan could say that with absolute certainty. No wildlife would willing venture into such a place.

  “Horrible, isn’t it.” Verdan looked at the miles of dead woodland and shook his head in disgust. So much death, so much pointless destruction.

  “I knew it would be bad, but a part of me had been hoping that it would have begun to heal or recover,” Barb said, her gaze locked on the dead trees. “Seeing it now really drives home how close we came to it all falling apart.”

  “Closer than I would have liked, that’s for sure,” Verdan said as they followed the path into the dead woods and turned west. They were on the same route that they’d followed when chasing the Cyth Host that had assaulted Hobson’s Point. All this corruption was simply a byproduct of so many Cyth moving as one.

  They were little more than a day from Hobson’s Point now, and Verdan was more than ready to sleep in his own bed once more.

  Over the last few nights, and quite often during the day as well, Verdan and Magnus had painstakingly identified each Sigil on the wand. The layout was always the same, the Sigil on its own was the binding one, and then there was a triad of something elemental mixed with activation and a Sigil for projectiles. The odd Sigil that sat below the triad was what they’d struggled the most with.

  Eventually, Magnus had been able to figure it out using some of the Sigils they’d already discovered. It seemed that it was what they were calling a conditional Sigil, and stood outside of the normal rules. This one, specifically, was what kept the Sigils from effecting the wand itself.

  Using it with a trio of light Sigils caused the stone tablet to remain dark, and instead a single point of bright light to form above it. This sort of modifier was fascinating to work with, and Verdan knew he’d finally figured out the last puzzle of the Kranjir ancestral weapons.

  The axe that Sinead, the closest thing the Mhorgain had to a Keeper, had given him had two sets of Sigils. The body and handle were covered in durability Sigils, while just the blade had a dual-necrosis and sharpness triad. A fourth Sigil had been present, which Verdan had assumed was some separate effect, but instead must be a different conditional Sigil that made the effects localised.

  At least, that was his working theory, and testing it was another reason why Verdan was eager to get home. That and showing Natalia his haul of alchemy equipment and reagents. He didn’t know what she’d do with the Aether machine they’d found, but he was certain that it would be impressive.

  They were on the cusp of pushing their understanding of several disciplines forward, and once they did, the independence of the city would be further reinforced. Right now, Hobson’s Point relied heavily on Verdan and his allies for any defence against Sorcerers or other potential invaders.

  If they could develop these Sigils, though, and create their own form of wands, then they could be made by any skilled artisan. When that day came, Verdan would no long be needed. A prospect that he was heartily looking forward to. His sense of duty wouldn’t let him abandon the city or stand idle when they were being threatened, but neither did he want to forever be its guardian.