“The Ostmen are given their Forgings. The men of Kemet take animistic traits. Only the Hellenes draw power from sacrifice. The Ostmen and the Kemet are granted their power directly from their gods. I would argue that only the Hellenic tribes know the price of their might, for they are the only ones honest about the price.”

  - Ibn Sina, Philosopher and Healer

  The hour was late when Taliesin rose and dressed, nearly midnight by his estimation. Despite that, he felt refreshed and eager to work. He’d spent untold amounts of time in his own head while in the Void, and now that he’d been returned to his life and gifted with the vigor of youth, he had things to do. He let the girl sleep, for she’d no doubt have to be back to work at dawn and could use the rest.

  There were several things he needed to address. He had no enchanted gear at all. His enchanted robes had offered him some defenses, while his Celestial Grimoire had aided with spellcasting. Of course, his Orb of Eternity granted him power on par with the Merlin. None of these were available to him now, either destroyed or lost to the endless sea of worlds.

  But what did he really need? Taliesin considered the question carefully. The Grimoire was helpful, but with his new spellforming techniques, mostly irrelevant. He would ideally have notebooks and be able to write out new tomes of information and discoveries, but for that he needed a secure home. A new grimoire was a luxury for later. Defenses, on the other hand, were an absolute requirement. The enchantments on the robes were the best he could come up with at the time, but he had many new ideas that he could put into effect.

  Yet in the end, what Taliesin needed more than anything was aether. Raw aether was the stuff of true power as a wizard… well, as an archmage. Taliesin corrected his thinking. If he was going to accomplish anything in this new world, he’d need to embrace the new title. From the context of his conversations, and how he was being treated, archmages were equal parts nobility and semi-independent magical powerhouses.

  That brought up the question of what Taliesin wanted to do. He’d been a worker bee in his past life. A high ranking one that managed to gain the ear of a powerful noble, perhaps, and a particularly talented one in the end, but a worker bee nonetheless. In his past world, the scant few ‘wizard kings’ that had small fiefdoms were few and fell swiftly. His own lands had proclaimed magic users could not wield political power, so he’d never sought it. Yet if this ‘Twilight of the Gods’ was going to yield endless wars across the lands around him, he could not be some worker bee again.

  Taliesin had spent too many years in the Void to care about the whims of those who would proclaim themselves rulers. He’d struggled to care about titles all day long, but those social niceties would have to be re-learned. But what he could take away from this was the mentality of a free thinker who would do what he felt was right, rather than obeying the commands of another.

  So what did he think was right? The Fates - well, in the pantheon of those around him, the Norns, so he had to get that right in his head too - had all but spelled out that this world was doomed to fail because of the machinations of the gods and their marshaled forces. All manner of man and beast would be forced to knuckle under by their power, and be destroyed.

  Taliesin had not defied the end of his own world just to die meekly in this one. He resolved that he would subvert this fate, and strive to help as many others as possible survive it as well. He would find a place to build a true citadel. It would be a powerful bastion designed to hold up against the might of terrible beasts and endless armies, and protect as many people as he could in the face of oblivion. He felt the scar left behind from his old world once more - the home he had lost, the people he had watched go while he remained behind. Things would be different this time. He had his youth and his knowledge, and he would put it to use.

  In fact, he not only had his own knowledge, he had a secret only the gods seemed to know about - the Akashic Records. If he could devise a system that allowed him to access it, or maybe his allies as well, then he might gain an advantage that would allow more people to survive - perhaps even thrive.

  With that question answered to his own satisfaction, Taliesin returned his attention to his own vestments with renewed vigor. He pulled a pouch of coins from his belt that had been given to him by one of Lady Solveig’s guards. It was his portion of the loot from the bandits, no doubt granted to keep the archmage happy. He fished out a copper coin.

  Healing was something he’d struggled with during his wizarding years. Few spells existed, for the clerics of Jesu Invictus had guarded their knowledge zealously. Yet he’d learned a few simple spells that he’d refined in the Void, and been able to offer as rudimentary support as Gunther saved what lives he could amongst their escort. With a minor [Shaping] spellform, Taliesin made the copper coin into a long stylus with a sharp point. A second coin was [Shaped] into a ring. With the spell still active, Taliesin began to carve tiny shapes into the magically softened metal. Aether paths formed into glyphs, and those glyphs combined into sigils.

  When the [Shaping] spell ended, the ring was complete. Taliesin slipped the ring onto his finger. The enchantment was very simple. It drew on the natural aether of the wearer, and would continually power a low-grade healing spell if the wearer was injured. It was undirected and basic, but also did not require attention or a special power source.

  The ring powered up immediately, and Taliesin could feel the magic going to work on his injured arm where he’d been struck by a bandit’s arrow. His skin itched as the magic stitched his wound. Yet the minor enchantment was far too slow for Taliesin’s preferences, and it relied on his already limited aether pool. He frowned and pulled it off once his injury was gone.

  “I need a source of aether,” Taliesin mumbled to himself quietly. His thoughts immediately turned back to the Orb of Eternity, but he had no way of recreating it. The artifact had been created long before he was born, and he’d never been able to determine how it created aether. He wasn’t even sure the Orb was the source, or if it drew in the aether from some other place.

  Rather than attempting to recreate a mystery, Taliesin turned back to the last sources of power he’d seen. The Fates had drawn divine power from someplace other. He’d seen several divine acts while in the pocket realm they inhabited, but hardly enough to be conclusive. Worse, that source had the problem of being extremely powerful, even if he learned how they used it. Then he recalled the youngest Fate, err, Norn, Skuld, had fished him out of the Void because she was harvesting ‘Chaos’ from it. Could he draw from the Void instead?

  Taliesin considered how he could go about that. He could finish recreating his portal technology, the dozens of spells and enchantments that created it. Then he’d have to figure out how to reach between realms instead of directly to them, which would actually mean making his portal less efficient. But how would he harness the ‘Chaos’ that Skuld had described? He’d need to develop a new spellform that could capture the aether he’d floated in for so long. Yet he’d not been able to really manipulate it directly the entire time he’d been in there. This would be the work of years, if not longer, yet seemed far more feasible than trying to steal the power of actual goddesses.

  As he worried at the problem of capturing aether from the Void, Taliesin’s thoughts flitted back to his journey from the Norns’ home to the mortal realm, and remembered his idle thoughts from the journey. He’d marveled at the power of the sun, and how much raw aether it put out. He’d said it had to be a thousand thousand miles from the Earth. Skuld had laughingly corrected him.

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  “Try ninety three thousand thousands!”

  Her words echoed in his memories and sparked inspiration. He didn’t need to create a portal into the Void. His knowledge of spatial magics was already up for the task. He’d created a gate between realms. Making a tiny portal within the same one should be far easier, especially when he knew how far he had to go.

  At the same time, there was great danger in opening a portal to such an energetic place. There was heat and energies far beyond his comprehension to contend with. This ball of flame easily warmed an entire planet that was ninety three thousand thousand miles away. He could incinerate himself and the entire village if he allowed all that to pass through.

  One of the first spells Taliesin had created was a way to prevent gasses from going through a portal. He’d had a near-death accident on one of his earliest gate openings, when it opened upon a volcanic planet filled with toxic air. He had choked on the fumes and nearly passed out before he had cut the connection. If he modified that spell to block everything except aether, that should help. He could also layer several defenses on top of that. [Elemental Reflection] and [Flame Shield] could prevent the tiny area from being overwhelmed. However, he’d still need to keep the portal very small.

  After going over and over the design in his head a few times, Taliesin decided on a bracelet design with a round circle on the top about two inches in diameter. He needed more surface area than a ring would provide. It took four coins worth of copper to [Shape] an appropriately sized bracelet in a tight “C” shape. Two eyelets at the ends would let him use a strip of cloth or leather to tie it tight to his wrist. Once he was satisfied with his handiwork, Taliesin set to work with the stylus and a fresh cast of [Shape].

  The complex array of glyphs and sigils were a pleasure to lay out. Taliesin had taken his original spatial magics and torn them apart piece by piece and redesigned them while in the Void. They were the end result of a lifetime of study, despite these spells being far from his personal specialities. Yet the fact was he’d designed them twice over now, and finding a new way to use them was deeply satisfying.

  The [Shape] spell sputtered out just as the last line was laid down. Taliesin set the bracelet down on the table. It sat there cold and lifeless, waiting for him to take the final step. Unlike the Minor Ring of Healing that he’d made, this one did not draw aether from the user. It was designed to draw in aether from the sun at its incredible distance away, and would use a tiny fraction of that power to fuel its enchantments. But it required aether from Taliesin to start the process.

  Suddenly nervous, Taliesin double checked his work once more. The two-inch portal would bring in a lot of aether, if his estimation was at all close. Finding no problems, he began to push his aether into the appropriate place on the enchantment. More and more aether poured in, until a critical tipping point was achieved. Then, inside the metal disk on the top of the bracelet, a tiny gate opened. It wasn’t visible to the naked eye, but aether began to pour in. The sigils glowed orange and the metal grew warm to the touch.

  Taliesin tapped into the aether using the appropriate enchantment, and could sense a deep well of power growing. He felt exultant for his achievement. Endless power, on a simple bracelet! The power just kept growing. In horror, Taliesin realized that even with just aether being pulled through the tiny portal, it was still too much for his enchantments.

  Taliesin drew deeply from the aether pouring from the portal, and began casting a series of spells.

  “[Flame Shield], [Disperse Energy], [Defensive Ward], [Zone of Protection]”

  Few of these were suitable for blocking aether, but the bracelet itself was going to melt catastrophically and release the energy. Instead, Taliesin deftly tied that aether into reinforcing all of these spells. Over and over, he pushed aether into each defense, layering them until they were as impenetrable as he could make them. The spellforms he’d crafted blocked the bracelet entirely from view.

  Whump.

  A quiet thrum of power pulsed, and all the defensive spells winked out without fanfare. The bracelet was gone - completely annihilated by the rampant aether and explosive destruction of the overloaded enchantments. In addition, a perfect circle of the table was missing as well, leaving a bracelet-sized hole next to the wash basin.

  Taliesin sat back in relief. He glanced over to see the girl hadn’t shifted at all, still sound asleep in the bed.

  “Hmm, a few problems with that,” he mumbled as his thoughts returned to the task at hand while ignoring the new hole in the table.

  The material had been insufficient. Copper could handle aether to a point, but poorly compared to orichalcum or mithril. Silver and gold would both be better, especially if wound around a core of iron or steel. Also, he needed to layer more enchantments. Perhaps I can make the aether flow adjustable, so less comes through? Taliesin nodded. Pairing that with a much smaller gate should do the trick.

  Taliesin surveyed the coins he had remaining. He had four silver coins and a very small, square gold coin. He shrugged. It was only money. He’d make more later. The problem was that he had no steel or iron. But there was iron in the room. Taliesin turned to look at the wood stove. Hmm, that’ll work.

  Without concern as to what his host might think, Taliesin [Shaped] the woodstove’s iron door, thinning it across the entire surface until he had a four inch length of iron. With a bit of effort, he turned that length into an eight-inch long tube, then braided the silver from the coins around it. Finally, he took the gold coin and threaded it around the silver. A ball of iron thinly coated with silver ended the new torque, and the thick necklace would rest easily about his neck.

  When Taliesin took up his copper stylus, this time he knew he was in for a long session. The ring had taken no time at all, while the failed bracelet had taken the better part of an hour. The torque was going to be truly challenging. This time, the gate would only be the size of a pinhole. In addition, the defenses would be multi-layered and considerably stronger than on his first attempt. Finally, the main filter enchantment would be adjusted to limit the amount of aether allowed through as well.

  With an effort of will, Taliesin began to carve. His focus was intense, for the engravings required precision and perfection. He layered in the base of the enchantment spellforms before adding in the glyphs. Line after painstaking line, Taliesin built the sigils that would punch a hole through space and draw power through it. Joy flooded through him as he reached the end of the process, and the last sigil fell into place.

  After carefully checking for mistakes, Taliesin placed the torque on the table. With no small amount of apprehension, he began to pour his own aether into the device. Much like the bracelet, it drew in a considerable portion of his aether pool before it sputtered to life. Taliesin refused to become excited as he monitored the aether drawing into the necklace. The sigils glowed and sparkled with a white light that had faintly pink and orange hues to it, not unlike the light of a rising sun. The artifact’s well of power grew and stabilized, now strengthened sufficiently that Taliesin could open the flow all the way and draw power directly from the Torque’s gate without damaging it.

  With a happy smile, Taliesin twisted the torque into place around his neck and tapped into it. The amount of aether he could draw was considerably larger than his own aether pool, and it would never end. This was a good start to his new vestments. Almost absently, he took one more copper coin and made a new Ring of Healing. This one was similar to the first only in appearance, for Taliesin was able to tie it directly to his torque and thus use a much more powerful healing enchantment.

  Now that he had a usable power source and an enchanted ring, Taliesin felt much more secure. It was far from everything he truly needed as an archmage. He still needed a gauntlet or staff with powerful spells enchanted directly within, proper defensive wards and shields, contingency items, and maybe even a new grimoire. His power source was solid but crude, and he suspected he had a great deal of experimentation and refinement in his future. But for today, it was a good start.

  “It’s pretty,” murmured a sleepy voice from the bed. “What’s it called?”

  “The Torque of Dawn,” said Taliesin. Light was coming through the shutters, warning of the impending day. It was a shame, because now he was ready for a nap.

  “Hmm,” she said with a yawn. “That’s nice. Thanks for letting me sleep. It was much warmer than the servants quarters.”

  Taliesin gave a genuine chuckle. “Yes, I’d imagine it is.”

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