Maril sagged against the wide foundation of the support pillar, letting her temple press against a stone block taller than her, it was huge, cool, and weathered smooth. She sighed noticing a strand of her deep brown hair that had escaped from her long braid. It was plastered to the sweat on her face and she took a moment to peel it away. This was only the eleventh pillar, she still had eight more to go. Groaning, she braced herself and stood upright. She was disappointed in herself, she had really hoped to be able to get all of them done today, but it looked like she would have to come back and finish tomorrow, her father would be exceedingly displeased if Owen had to carry her in and up to bed again.
“Are you ok miss?” Owen asked.
Still braced against the stone foundation with her hands, Maril grumbled about always being followed around. But since there had been multiple occasions of Owen needing to carry her around like a small sack of potatoes, she did it under her breath.
“I’m fine Owen, but I don’t think I am going to be able to finish them all today. Let me finish this one and we will go home.”
“Excellent miss, we can come back in a few days.”
“No, we will come back tomorrow,” Maril growled, glaring over her shoulder at him. Owen stood patiently beside her small carriage which was parked on the path, it would be too generous to call it a road. Owen had parked the carriage carefully, so the single horse could reach the grass growing on the edges of the path but not the ripening grain in the fields on either side of it.
He nodded, his wavey yellow-blond hair uncharacteristically messy from the ceaseless breeze “Certainly, miss,” He promptly turned and effortlessly squeezed into the small carriage to begin fluffing the pillows. He did this routinely, every time they were getting ready for the trip back to New Rimston after working in the rural areas around the city.
Maril sighed, again, and turned her attention back to the stone foundation. A few feet above her hands was a group of runes. Runes for strength and stability, for tightness and togetherness, for cleanliness and sterility. And many more runes for multiplying effects and connecting to other runes.
She closed her rich brown eyes briefly and reopened them with the ability to see the magic. Smiling she looked at the brightly blazing runes she had just refreshed. Even if refreshing these simple but powerful networks was not her specialty, it was still satisfying to look at the finished network and know that she had done it.
She traced up the pillar following the bright lines of magic that began at the runes. Checking each intersection, both visually and feeling it with her magic, to make sure they were connected securely and flawlessly. The pillar was made of simply worked stone blocks and the magic traced all the way to the top where the pillar supported elegant arches 40 feet in the air. The other ends of the arches were supported by neighboring support pillars on each side. The pillars on each side also had clumps of runes near their bases. On the pillar to her right, the runes shone with intense fresh magic. The runes on the other pillar flickered listlessly and the magic lines tracing up the pillar and over the arches were dim and sad. That pillar would be next.
The aqueduct was well designed and well built. It would have lasted years and years on its own. But it was the magic from the runes on the support pillars, routinely refreshed by mages, that had made the aqueduct last so much longer. So long in fact, that the aqueduct had stood since before the drawing of the oldest map of New Rimston in the Emperor Tellas’ library. At least, that is what Maril was told when she was given the assignment to come refresh the runes.
Smiling to herself, she nodded. This one was finished. She tugged her mage permit out from under her tan overalls and soft orange and blue plaid shirt. The smooth oval of thick metal was warm and glowed with her identification sequence, a short series of symbols in a variety of colors, and her allowed work area stamp. Freeing the permit’s silky ribbon from around her neck, she stretched up and slowly tapped it on each side of the cluster of runes. A shimmering shield glided over the pillar’s runes like a blanket tucking in a small child. The lower edge of the shield glimmered with her identification sequence, identical to the sequence on her permit, and the infrastructure symbol. Now only a mage with a mage permit with an infrastructure stamp could unlock the runes. The runes were safe, theoretically, from unpermitted mages as well as damage from animals and the weather.
Even if she didn’t get the entire nineteen pillars completed for this assignment, the line of aqueduct supports with blazing runes on each base stretching out through the field of almost-ready-to-harvest grain was impressive. She was genuinely pleased with herself. But she was also on the verge of falling over.
Maril did another slow blink to turn off her magic sight and gingerly turned towards the carriage. Owen had finished his ritual pillow fluffing and was once again enduringly standing at the bottom of the carriage steps. She walked towards him, gently putting one foot in front of the other, wading through the yellow grain that was often well taller than her head. She avoided any sudden movements that could result in her falling to the beckoning ground as the horizon swayed and rippled slightly. Arriving at the carriage, she stared at the three steps stretching above her head, her knees wobbling.
After a short pause of silence as they stood beside the carriage, “Are you ready to go miss?” Owen asked, always polite.
Her shoulders slumped, “Yes, thank you, Owen.”
“No problem miss,” his large human hands and strong broad shoulders had no issue picking up her slight gnome frame and gently placing her in the carriage. Not only through the door into the carriage, but also around the wall closer to the bench piled high with soft colorful pillows. Maril braced herself on the bench before he let go and then half climbed half fell into the soft nest.
A second later she was vaguely aware of Owen sliding off her shoes, caked with field mud, and tucking her more securely into the bench. Through the haze of oncoming sleep, she was mildly annoyed with herself, knowing that Owen would once again be carrying her in from the carriage up to her bed. But the deep warmth of sleep had her before she could even scowl.