The Effaced: Chapter Twelve

Eighteen years ago, I stood in a training room, Aniseed standing across from me. My mentor was spinning a staff in one hand, while she kept an eye on me. Water was condensing out of the air along the edge of her staff, and I circled her, waiting for her attack. 

In my mind I was building a series of five different spells, keeping three of them in the top layer of my focus, with the other two crammed into my split-mind. At the same time, I ran my aura through the enchantments on my gun, stopping her magic from getting into the gun and breaking it.

I flicked my hand out and fired, squeezing out shots in rapid succession, but each and every one of them was caught by strings of water that neutralized their momentum, then flung them back at me at speed. I caught them with my mental manipulation spell and fired them back at her, but bands of water slapped them aside. 

“Below you!” Odril said, her demonic voice sounding almost, but not quite, human. I leapt backwards, just in time to stop a spike of water from lancing me through the chest. 

“Left, left, left,” Odril shouted into my head, her demonic magic reading the flow of the fight, and I dove to the left, trusting my partner completely, and sure enough, bullets made of water ripped through the space I’d been standing a moment before. 

I raised my gun and reached for the power that Odril had given me, then infused the power of my aura directly into the bullet I was preparing to fire, before pulling down my third arch-star and smashing it into the bullet as well. 

I raised my gun and fired, and a bullet that glowed the gray-black of my aura shot out. Aniseed spun her staff and caught the bullet, but I’d infused the continual recharge of my third arch-star into it. She grunted as the infused bullet pushed against her spell, the strange infusion forcing her to continually expend her aura to keep it countered. 

At the same time, I seized the bullet with my metal magic, then dropped both of the spells in my split-mind star and started building a new spell, one that used my second rune bond.

But Aniseed was a better fighter and a better mage than I was. In the time the bullet was hanging in the air, she’d conjured a spinning whirlpool around it, rather than stopping it with raw force, and the bullet flung back in my direction. It pinged against my armored coat, and I raised my gun, and tapped into my familiar ability again, infusing my aura, my fourth arch-star, and my massive spell into the bullet. 

I knew for a fact that Aniseeed had four layers of defense. 

The first were the water spell contingencies she’d set up. This bullet would slip past them, not triggering them, thanks to the infusion of my arch-star.

The second was a personal defensive ward, and my bullet would also slip past that, undetectable by the ward’s defenses, also thanks to the arch-star’s infusion. 

The third layer was an enchanted set of force armor, and this was where the spell came in. It was a strange, somewhat esoteric bit of magic, and it would let the bullet pass through the force as if it weren’t there. 

The fourth layer was a chainmail shirt with some anti-tampering enchantments that stopped me from using my metal magic on it, but that was the least important. The bullet could punch through that without any problems.

I would win our fight, and it might even kill her. That would be great! I’d finally be able to graduate if I managed to kill Aniseed. Zone would be so mad if I graduated before she had a chance to.

“Are you sure about this?” Odril whispered, her voice sounding concerned. “I know what Arenamaster said about us needing to be strong, but Aniseed… She’s a tough teacher, but does she deserve to die?” 

My finger was on the trigger, and it wavered for a second, like it always did when Odril said things like that, pointing out how the person in the arena might not have had a choice but to be there. 

I should have reported her to Alyphize for insubordination, but Odril and Zone were my only friends. I couldn’t lose one of them. And what if my new demon and I didn’t get along? 

In the second of hesitation, alarms started blaring, the enchanted lights on the ceiling flashing red for a moment, then returning to normal as the Arenamaster’s voice echoed throughout the entire training facility. 

“Military. Take all emergency measures. If we can repel the initial assault squads, I can open a portal to the Fallen Void and we can retreat into the demon realm and escape.” 

I lowered my gun, and Aniseed lowered her staff, letting it thump to the floor. 

“We need to go,” she said. I nodded and started reloading my guns, making sure they were full of ammo. 

“Would it be so bad to be turned over?” Odril asked. “I mean, you’ve only been able to visit the rest of the undercity on missions.” 

“I’ve been there for fun a few times,” I shot back, whispering under my breath so Aniseed couldn’t hear me bickering with Odril. 

“I mean, a few,” she said. “Like… Three times in the last five years. But if you were working with them, you could go wherever.” 

“The military and constables are evil,” I whispered on reflex, and Odril didn’t respond. 

Aniseed and I slipped out into the hall, glancing either way, and then starting heading to the left. The right hall would only lead deeper into the complex, and if they’d already gotten that deep, then repelling them would be near impossible. 

Both of us were tense as we made our way up, working through the halls, but not encountering any resistance. 

Then Aniseed jerked, shoving me behind a crate of ritual supplies, and I looked at her. 

“They’re up ahead,” she hissed. “Stay here.” 

Then she sprinted ahead, and I peeked around the corner to watch.

A squad of six military mages had fanned out as they marched down the hallway. In the front was a pair of people with a pair of powerful, rapid-firing, heavier guns, a pair of force sorcerers with glowing orbs of force ready to release in the middle, and combat witches in the back, holding wands and keeping a mobile ward projected ahead of them. 

The moment they saw Aniseed, the squad stopped, and one of the witches spoke. 

“Drop the staff, get down, and put your hands on your head. No magic.” 

In response, Aniseed spun her staff, and both of the gunners opened fire on her, trying to stop her from getting a spell off.

Instead, the bullets were caught by whips of water and spun, diverting them to patter against the ward, while Aniseed continued to build her spell. 

The force sorcerers let out a barrage of force bolts, which punched through the water whips, but were stopped dead by Aniseed’s defensive ward, and the witches started quickly slapping together some sort of modular spell in the background, releasing magic from spell storage bottles to build. 

Before the ritual they were building could unleash, Aniseed’s spell completed. 

There was a concept in sorcery that was called various things – output detachment, discorporate ignition, meta-distant spells – but what it boiled down to was altering a normal spell so that its effect wouldn’t originate at the sorcerer. Easy in theory, but in reality, it’s extremely difficult to manage. I could do it, with some effort, but I wouldn’t have wanted to rely on it in a fight. 

Aniseed’s spell was a perfect example of why mages who master the skill are considered dangerous. The ward, which had been tuned to stop physical and projected magical attacks, was unable to stop the spell. 

Water condensed out of the air and transformed into hair-thin, razor-sharp lines, which spun through the same area as the squad. 

The gunners and witches, who only had basic enchanted force armor, were shredded, like fruit before a master swordsman.

The sorcerers lasted a moment longer, their ability to adapt and improve their force armor buying them time. 

But only for a few seconds, then they sprayed into a fountain of viscera and blood.

Without anyone powering it, the ward flickered out. Aniseed looked at me, and waved me forwards, and we started running down the hall again. 

“I don’t have that many left in me,” Aniseed said as we ran. “My aura recharge arch-star will get me back into fighting shape soon, but…” 

We came screeching to a halt as we approached a t-junction, and squads came from both the right and left. 

“Drop!” Odril shouted into my head, and I did. 

It saved my life. 

One of the soldiers lobbed a powerful enchanted grenade, one that had been designed for use in the war with Saxum. I recognized the model, since the Arenamaster had made me memorize their standard shapes. This one would unleash a concussive force blast, as well as a sphere of heat that had as much energy as an ordinary grenade, but all of it would be concentrated within a four-foot diameter sphere, and would fade in seconds. 

Aniseed’s water caught the grenade, but not far enough. She was a duelist, not a soldier, and the grenade detonated. The concussive blast was stopped by her ward and force armor, but the massive amount of heat boiled her blood within her body, and she collapsed to the ground. 

Rage flowed through me and crystalized as I shaped spells. I was Mist, champion of the arena, and gun for hire. I’d eliminated some of the most dangerous people in the underground to help clean it up, and had the respect of the Throne of the Gambler, the Contractor, the Arenamaster, and even the Concrete Crown. 

What were a bunch of murdering whelps? 

I leapt to my feet and caught the spray of bullets that the team had unleashed, then sent them flying backwards, using the familiar power of Odril to invest one of them with my fourth arch-star. In the same instant I cast seven small spells, each one of them empowering the single bullet that I’d invested power into. 

More bullets were ringing through the air, alongside force bolts, but that was no problem. I split my focus and redirected the bullets, letting them curve around me. I reinforced the steel plates in my coat, allowing them to absorb the pelting force, cast a spell with my other rune bond to weaken the force and bullets both, and wove through the fight under the guidance of Odril. 

The entire time, the other half of my focus was on the empowered bullet.

With my invested fourth arch-star, it was able to slide through the ward, and I used my magic to guide and enhance its flight path to the witches. I could handle the sorcerers and the gunners, but if the witches got their spells off, things would be bad.

The bullets ripped through the heads of both of the witches on the left side, and I released all my magic, turning to the right and raising a gun, preparing to invest it and kill the other two with a single shot, all while maintaining my sphere of defense. 

“Another Saxum bomb,” Odril said. “Behind you and to your left.” 

I spun my hand, dispelling one of the layers of spellcraft I was working on to cast another spell with my second rune bond, rendering it's force magic useless for a few seconds, just in case they tried to detonate it early. At the same time, I manipulated the metal in the bomb's casing with my metal magic.

The bomb paused its flight mid-air, then reversed and rocketed back. I took a second to layer another spell and invest my fourth arch-star into the bomb, and it slipped through the ward and exploded, killing one of the sorcerers and seriously injuring one of the gunners.

But it had bought the witches on the other side time, and their spell completed, abjurative magic locking down the space around me, making it hard to shape my aura. I could fight my way through it, Aniseed had made sure I’d learned how to deal with cuffs in our training, but it would be harder.

So I used a trick that didn’t take much shaping skill. 

I summoned Odril’s vessel. 

With a flash of light she appeared, short, slender, and looking very much like a human woman, except for her claw-like hands and feet, shark-like teeth, and row of horns curling around her head. 

She launched herself at the ward while I played defense, stopping the bullets and force spells dead in their flight paths, fighting through the shaping disruption, which felt like trying to get into a fistfight with a wet blanket over my head. 

Red magic flared around Odril’s hand as she drew on my soul for nourishment and power, then smashed her hand into the ward. 

It exploded, but the second part of the witch’s spells activated then, and lightning exploded through the corridor, the sharp smell of ozone filling it. Odril’s vessel was torn to shreds, and I heard her cursing in my mind. 

“Okay, now I agree, let’s kill them. Then surrender!” 

I ignored her as I used my anti-lightning contingencies, shaping the metal of my coat and shirt so none of it touched my skin, and extended thin wires of the metal into the ground. It was a complex and difficult series of three dozen shaping spells at the best of times. It was made even harder by the fact that I had to keep my defenses up around me so I didn’t get shot or pasted by force magic, and was made harder still by being under the shaping disruption spell, but it worked. 

Then the lightning ended, I invested and cast a spell around my gun, and shot the witch in the head before using a spell to bounce the bullet into the other witch’s head. 

After that, it was just cleanup. 

The shaping disruption field wasn’t able to stop me from killing the remaining few, and then I grabbed the stone that contained all the power I’d invested into Odril’s vessel and started sprinting down the hall ahead while Odril used my senses to help keep me alive.

At the next junction, I froze as I saw a lone figure.