The Abjurer: Chapter 18-19

It was stunning. The walls were made from ten thousand shades of ice, with blues and whites that refracted light in stunning patterns through the air.

Not random patterns either. The light formed boundaries to create gaps of darkness that were shaped into massive, three-dimensional spells.

No.

Not three dimensional.

The flow of time wasn’t just being used to charge up the power of the array. It was an integrated component of the spell, and I didn’t have the fundamental magical knowledge to even understand how that could be done. It certainly couldn’t be done with the limited number of spell languages I knew.

I thought I understood Faerie languages fairly well, from when I’d used them against the king, but my knowledge only gave me the vaguest sense that this was some sort of massive weather magic, on a scale that simply boggled imagination.

A part of me was sorely tempted to open my third eye, but I was pretty sure that if I did that, I’d fry my brain.

“What is it?” Osheen asked.

“I think I just figured out why Medb was worshiped by some cultures,” I said. I explained the array to him as best I could, and his face grew increasingly pale. I was cut off mid explanation by a pair of very attractive men swaggering up to us.

Too attractive.

My cloak’s mental shield snapped into place as they began to speak

“So, you’re the delegation from the –”

“Isn’t it a bit rude to attempt to use mind magic on your guests?” I asked, and next to me, I felt Osheen stiffen.

The pressure on my mental bubble eased, and I turned the mental defenses of the cloak off. The year before, I wouldn’t have been able to do that, but the ward and speed enchantments had forced me to add functions to turn things off and on manually.

“Well, it’s not like we could help ourselves,” the man on the right said. “Two delicious mortals, brimming with enough power to be attractive, but not enough to properly defend themselves, as the scion of some nobody Queen?”

“That’s right, you were simply too… scrumptious… to resist,” the one on the left said.

“We are the delegates of Queen Selithe of the Court of the Western Sea,” the one on the right said.

“Wonderful to meet you,” Osheen said, holding out a hand. He had a fake smile plastered on his face, and I couldn’t help but study it a little bit. He was definitely drawing on his time in the Roark household.

“Oh, the pleasure is all ours,” the one on the left said, kissing his hand. I felt myself bristle at that, and the one on the right gave me a mocking smile.

“Is there a problem?” he asked.

“Not at all,” I said, shifting my staff from one hand to the other. “I was just admiring the beautiful weather magic that the Queen has in her first ballroom. It’s truly fascinating. I’ve never seen magic of such complexity from the Court of Sea. But perhaps the Western Seas has some. I’ve never found the time to visit.”

Both of their eyes narrowed at that, and I gave them my most charming smile. Behind them, a crowd had started to gather, curious about what was clogging up the entryway. Many in the crowd were humanoid, but many more were not.

“You speak boldly for your station,” the one who’d kissed Osheen’s hand said. “Do you believe yourself capable of working such a wonder, Maestro?”

He said the word Maestro with such vitriol that it sounded more like a curse than it did a title.

“Weather is always Changing,” I said, putting an emphasis on changing. “And I do represent the Silver Queen.”

“You think far too highly of yourself,” the non-kisser said.

“That’s the funny thing about us mortals,” I said, leaning back and faking a yawn. “You may have more raw power than me a thousand times over, but…”

Then I flared my cloak and zipped in close. Moving towards an opponent, rather than taking defensive steps did drain it a little bit more, but it was worth it.

My ward flared to life around me, and it forced the pair back a step, then it vanished. I smiled and brought my staff down next to me, a few sparks jumping off its tip.

“You’re limited,” I said. “You’ve constrained your power to that of the ocean. I’m not burdened by such inadequacies. I can create anything.”

I waved and strode away, my cloak set back into passive charging mode.

“It was wonderful to meet you. If you find something interesting, perhaps I’ll find cause to visit you back home.”

Osheen caught up to me a moment later.

“That was well done,” he said, whispering out of the corner of his mouth. “If this had been a crowd of nobles, that would have been brutish, but the Fae respect displays of power.”

“Thank you,” I said, trying to stop myself from hyperventilating. “I just… want this to be over. But I have an idea it’s not going to be anywhere near so simple.”

“Probably not,” Osheen agreed.

We headed towards one of the refreshment tables, and I started by snagging a water. It was stored in a cup that had been carved, or perhaps grown, out of ice, and the liquid inside of it shimmered oddly, like nothing I’d ever seen before.

There was another human standing near the table, and he nodded to us as we approached. He was taller than me, but shorter than Osheen, with light brown hair, and skin not dissimilar to Osheen’s. He wore ragged clothes that looked like they’d been on the road for one too many days, and survived one too many fights, and he had on a travel-stained burlap cloak.

“For being a pair of first timers, that wasn’t badly done,” he said, nodding as he took a sip of water.

When he spoke, all of the fae in the area took a step back, even though the nearest was still only a few paces away.

“Thank you,” Osheen said. He held out his hand, and the stranger shook it, then he looked to me.

“Ah, touch adverse. Well, with that your childhood was like before you were taken in, I can’t blame you.”

“Did… Did you just read my mind?” I asked, stunned. My cloak should have prevented that. Even if he was a druid, which seemed likely, given where we were, it should have at least flickered.

“Nah, I read your memories,” he said with an easygoing smile. “Your cloak’s not bad, it took me a few seconds to slip by it. I’m not a fan of the bits of Starless Night you’ve woven into them, but the damage is more or less done already, and you had one in the bank for taking care of the king, so I’ll let it slide.”

“Thanks?” I said, though it came out more like a question.

He took a long sip of water and nodded.

“For what it’s worth, you have my support in what you’re trying to do,” the strange man said. “I mean, Paerús is a bit of a hellscape. And I’ve been inside an actual hellscape! At least there, threats are usually honest with their brutality. Except the Throne of Lies, but… Oh, look at me, I’m rambling like a tottering old man.”

Curious, I started to crack open my third eye to take a look at the stranger, but before it was even a fraction of the way open, I felt it forcibly slam shut. The stranger smiled.

“I’d apologize, but I’m really not sorry. Not only would all the background magic be incredibly painful for you, but looking at me directly would… Well, let’s just say, you’d probably wind up in a coma.”

He waved cheerfully.

“Goodbye, Silver Emissary and Fallen Son.”

With that, he strode off into the crowd, which parted around him like waves breaking against a glacier. The fae around us let out a sigh of relief and approached the table, beginning to eat.

“What… Was that?” I asked weakly.

“I have no idea,” Osheen said.

“He just sort of shows up to these sorts of things,” a large creature that looked like a human-bear hybrid that glowed with golden light said. I briefly wondered if perhaps Seth had any relation to the creature, but decided it was probably not worth asking.

“He can do that? Don’t you need an invitation?”

“Not him, apparently. Sometimes he has someone else with him, usually a little old woman, and let me tell you, she scares me even more.”

A large creature that looked somewhere between a bat and a wolf let out a snarl that I couldn’t interpret the meaning of, but certainly wasn’t positive.

“Of course you’d be scared, Taiga. You always were a coward.”

I braced myself for a duel to break out there and then, but to my surprise, the golden bear-man just threw back his head and laughed.

“Lady Letheul,” he said. “There is cowardice, and then there is wisdom. Would you challenge our dear host to a fight?”

The wolf-bat shifted, and I traded a look with Osheen, feeling very out of place. He just shrugged, and so I took a sip of the water.

My eyes shot wide open. The water was almost indescribable. It conveyed memories as much as it did flavor. An ancient cliff of ice at the top of the world. The power of a sister, beloved and hated, shearing ice from that cliff, and it falling into the grasp of the ocean. The drift across the ocean for more time than even Aldvarri had been alive. Slowly losing itself, becoming one with the sea, before turning to the sky.

I took in a shuddering breath, and felt Osheen’s steadying hand on my shoulder.

“Are you okay?” he asked, sounding worried. Oracle sent me a concerned, warm feeling, trying to comfort me.

“I’m fine,” I said. “The water is… intense.”

He glanced down at his own sculpted ice cup uncertainly.

“Should I…?”

“I mean, we should eat. Just only one of us at a time. We shouldn’t insult our host, though.”

He took a sip, and for a moment, his eyes glazed over. He shuddered, and then refocused.

“I see what you mean,” he said dryly.

We moved away from the golden bear-man and the wolf-bat, slowly piling our plates with small bites of food.

The selection was absolutely absurd. There were six pots of Cassoulet alone, ranging from vegetarian to lamb shoulder to a meat that looked too stringy for even Osheen to be willing to try.

And it wasn’t just Cassoulet. There were a dozen stews, and past the stews lay a hundred varieties of bread, and past those were trays of vegetables.

I meandered over to the vegetable table and was stunned at the sheer variety. There were some that I’d grown up on, mushrooms, carrots, potatoes, peas and the like. But there were others I’d never even heard of – a bright pink root that floated over its serving tray, a glowing red… something… that was the same shape and size as a human heart, a parsnip that seemed to be made of gold, a plant that looked somewhat like asparagus, but was silvery, with a core of bright blue.

I stuck to the vegetables that I could recognize, though a part of me was tempted to try the golden parsnip. The legends around golden apples said that they were able to grant the person who ate them immortality.

There was no way that’d simply be laying on a buffet table, though, and even if it was, I wasn’t sure what sort of damage it’d do to me if I did try to eat it.

“You have a fascinating staff,” came a voice from behind me. I turned slowly to see someone who looked mostly like a very short, wide framed, soft featured human, but had large wings that reminded me of a cormorant.

“I appreciate that,” I said, inclining my head.

“You use the magic of autumn quite liberally,” she said. “Your bracer, your staff, your cloak. I’ve no doubt that your cloak uses it best. In your staff, however, as well as the bracer… The Court of Air is the master of air and lightning, why did you not call for our magic in your spells?”

She didn’t sound insulted, so much as curious.

“When I crafted these items, I had never met anyone from the Court of Air,” I said truthfully. “Beyond that, my knowledge of working with faerie magic comes mostly from my understanding of the magic of change. I’ve no doubt that the Court of Air’s magic is powerful when it comes to both wind and lightning. Also, ah… I didn’t make the bracer. I won it in a contest.”

“Oh!” she said, then smiled and extended a hand. I shook it. “You may call me Awel Meddal, Queen of the Breeze”

“You may call me Evan Tailor, Maestro of Enchantment, Emissary of the Silver Queen,” I said, smiling back. Internally, I was just relieved that not everyone was as creepy or rude as the Western Sea people who’d accosted us at the door.

“The Silver Queen? A Queen of Change from Autumn?” she asked, squinting at Oracle on my shoulder, who bowed his head to her ever so slightly.

“I believe that she split from Autumn to become independent, but she is a wielder of change magic,” I said, and Oracle squawked something that I assumed to mean confirmation.

“An independent in charge of a ley line?” she murmured, then shook her head. “Well, that’s certainly impressive, even I don’t have one of those. But are you sure you’re only a Maestro? Your breath’s intwined with a Lord, and I’d contest that you’re no lesser than he is.”

“Perhaps,” I said, shrugging. “But I simply use what the Silver Queen has called me.”

“I see. Well, I meant what I said. You should consider integrating some of the magic from my Greater Court into your staff and armband.”

“I’d be happy to, for the right price,” I said.

“Of course! You may be surprised how hard it is to get items custom built for the fae, even by the fae. Few of us are enchanters, and all of us that do practice the art are limited by the power of our Court. For example, I could alter your bracer easily – it’s command over a whispering wind and flight are well within my domain as the Queen of the Breeze, and I’ve studied some enchanting. But I couldn’t make a metal-based enchantment.”

I did actually already know that from my research into the fae – I’d lectured the people at the door about that very principle.

But she’d actually told me something very, very interesting, without intending to. Then again, she was a Queen of the Fae. Maybe she hadn’t meant to let it slip.

“Would you like a metal enchantment?” I asked. “If you were to restructure my bracer to work better, then I’d be happy to craft you one, if we can agree on the details.”

“As a matter of fact, I would!” she said, beaming. “I’ve had a bit of trouble with a human hunter who’s been using iron weapons to try to kill members of my court in Tracktath. If you could craft a metal-repelling spell that would work on iron, that would be worth quite a bit.”

“That’s certainly within my powers, though I’d need time to research and design the spell, as well as cast it,” I said.

“Naturally, naturally,” she said. “How about this? I upgrade half of your bracer now, and weave in a way for you to give me the item, and you’ll give me a metal repelling spell of roughly your staff’s quality within… Seven weeks from the end of the party? Once I receive the item, I’ll upgrade the other half.”

I considered for a moment, and then slowly nodded.

“I think that’s a perfectly fair deal, so long as you rework the flight part first.”

“Very well,” she said with a nod, then held out her hand. I removed the arm bracer and handed it to her, watching as the autumnal designs shifted slightly under her power, feathers weaving in with the leaves. She handed it back to me and nodded.

“It was a pleasure doing business with you, young Maestro.”

“And you as well, Queen of the Breeze,” I said, bowing my head.

I turned around to walk back to Osheen and froze.

Osheen was gone.

~~~

I felt my breath start to quicken, and I whirled around.

“Osheen?” I called out.

There was no response. I flickered my gaze over the crowd, looking for any trace of him.

Nothing.

I spotted the golden bear-man, and shot off towards him, making my way through the crowd as quickly as I could.

“Hello, young one,” he said when he saw me approaching.

“Osheen,” I said. “The Lord of Fire I was with. Did you see where he went?”

“Nay, I’m afraid not,” he said. “Last I saw, he was following you down the food table.”

I felt tears stinging at the corner of my eyes and mentally cursed at myself. I thought I’d gotten so much better at socialization, but one moment away from Osheen and I was crying?

But what if someone had killed him? The Fae were powerful, and they could be brutal.

No. The fae at the door had said that killing was off the table. But that still left kidnapping and torturing.

I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. What could I do?

I ran my hand over my belt, my hand laying on the blade I’d made, and then it jerked back, like it’d been bitten.

I had the scabbard. I was a diviner, and I could use it to track down his location.

But that would take time, and perhaps even more importantly, space. I was short on both of those.

I bit my lip and ran my hands through my pockets, then withdrew the key that I’d been given at the entrance.

Our room. It was supposed to be safe, under the direct protection of the Queen herself.

I turned and made my way out of the party as quickly as I could, following the directions to the wing where the guest rooms were as best I could.

At the top of the staircase, I was stopped by someone that looked like a much healthier, larger, and slightly more humanoid version of the snake monster that Osheen had killed in our very first trip to Yesgol.

“Hello,” the snake creature said. “I see that you’ve taken a commission from the Court of Air. I’d like to commission you to make us a weapon of lava to use in battle, something capable of at least being able to strike one of their lords.”

I stared at him.

“I don’t really have the time for this right now,” I said, trying to add as much apology into my voice as I could.

“I’d be happy to pay you quite handsomely,” he said. “I’ll give you ten of your silver coins… Crowns, I believe they’re called?”

I had been trying to push past the snake-creature, but the offer was so absurd that I stopped moving entirely. It gave me a fang-filled smile.

“Quite a good deal, no?” it asked.

“I… No! That’s not even enough to buy dinner in most places,” I said. “You want a weapon capable of fighting Lords for the cost of… like one loaf of bread?”

Something malicious glinted in the snake’s eyes and it let out a soft hissing sound.

“Just to think, if you’d taken it, my court could have commissioned you for many more things. So ungrateful.”

It made a sound like spitting on the ground, but no actual saliva came out, and then it turned to slither away. I pushed towards the doorway, but someone caught my arm.

I let out a gasp and acted before I could even think. My cloak flared to life around me, I shot backwards with enhanced speed, and my ward sprung up around me.

I let out a slow breath and dismissed my cloak.

“I meant no insult,” I said. “You merely surprised me. I’m not the best with touch.”

“No insult taken,” responded the creature. It looked like a very broad chested human, but it had a deer’s head. At the tips of its antlers were flickering flames, shaped not unlike leaves. “But I heard that you were calling out for Oisín, Lord of Forest Fires. I have answered your call.”

I blinked, staring at the deer-headed man. It definitely didn’t look like Osheen, and they cadence of their name was pronounced differently.

“I called for Osheen, Lord of Fire,” I said carefully, “not Oisín, Lord of Forest Fires. It was not my intent to confuse. But I do need to go. Osheen is yet to be found.”

“Hmm,” rumbled the deer-man. “Do you mean the other mortal whose stench lies heavy upon you?”

“Yes,” I said, ignoring the fact that he’d called Osheen’s smell a stench. I thought Osheen smelled nice, personally. “Do you know where he is?”

“Nay,” the deer-man said. “I could track his scent, if you wished. But not freely.”

“It’s okay,” I said, trying to hide my panic with a smile. “I happen to be a decent diviner. I’ll find him.”

“Very well,” the deer said, and I finally turned and fled into the doorway to the residence hall.

It took me a few moments to get to the right door, and I passed a few people, but they seemed less inclined to talk than those who’d been in the heart of the party.

I slammed the key into the lock and barged in. The suite was massive and opulent, but I barely had the time to take it in as I skidded to a halt.

One of the rooms was labeled ‘Ritualist’s Room’.

My mind flashed back to what the behemoth at the door had told me about our rooms being equipped with everything we may comfortably need.

I dashed into the room, and let out a sigh of comfort and relief.

The room was a large, well-stocked ritual room. None of the components were inherently magical, but it had a huge range of non-magical components like herbs. There was chalk, pens, pencils, and more.

I seized a small silver mirror and put it in the center of an arranged black area on the floor that had been designated to be marked with chalk, tossed aside my staff to let me use both of my hands, and set to work.

I don’t think I’d ever managed to write out a ritual that quickly before in my entire life. Oracle flew around the room, grabbing component jars and putting them down next to me, and I sketched out runes in the language of old Bradlewyr, glad that I was using it so much at the party. It had been an effective warmup for my brain, if nothing else.

Then I smashed my first arch-star into the spell, along with the third, hoping it’d increase the efficiency of charging the spell with the faerie aura in the air. I placed my hand on a tap that I’d built in and poured in my own power.

It didn’t do much. I had so little power in my Aura, especially after my third arch-star, that I was barely able to make a dent.

The power of Medb’s castle, on the other hand? That made a huge difference. The energy surged into my spell, rushing in as if I was using a fire brigade’s hose to fill a bucket, and it finished in less than five minutes.

An image flickered to life on the mirror’s surface. For half a second, I saw Osheen.

He was sitting in a chair – a normal wooden one, not one made of ice.

No, he wasn’t sitting. He was tied to it.

That was all I saw before the image on the mirror went black, and the face of a woman appeared on screen. She was beautiful, with long red hair that went down to her waist and invoked a thousand wildfires and eyes of emerald green that seemed to speak of endless summer days. She resembled an elf, but there was a refined elegance in her that no elf had ever managed, and her smile would have been enough to convince me of her benevolence…

If I hadn’t just seen her divert my scrying attempt.

“Hello, emissary,” she said, her voice a warm breeze that stirred down my neck.

“Spring Queen, I presume?” I asked, my voice deadly quiet and serious.

“I am a Queen of Spring, and the emissary of the greater Spring Queen,” she said with an acknowledging tilt of her head.

“You’ve taken my guest,” I said, cold fury leaking into my voice. “You are deeply, deeply in my debt.”

“If you’re unable to take care of yourself or your entourage, that is a failure on your part, Maestro,” the beautiful woman said with a calm smile.

I stared into the mirror, my Aura writhing around me in my fury, but I was unable to do anything.

I took a deep breath to calm myself, then looked into the mirror.

“By my oath and my power, I swear that if you return him, alive, unchanged, and unharmed, then you will be spared.”

As I spoke, my hands moved a piece of chalk around the diagram, scratching in new runes

Her eyebrows crept up her face and she let out a trilling laugh.

“Do you think to threaten me, mortal maestro?”

“No,” I said. A part of me was tempted to go for the cliché line about it being a promise, not a threat. Instead, I only stared at her, using the time to add new runes to my array.

After nearly a full minute of silence, the fae spoke.

“What would you give me for his return?”

“What do you want?” I asked.

“Perhaps five years of service to me?” she asked, and I shook my head.

“I can’t afford to burn five years of my life,” I said, tapping into my aura. “Revealing…”

Then I began to thread my aura through the new runes, weaving them in with specific words.

“…the reason why I can’t alone would cost me much,” I said, not threading the aura in.

“You,” I said, spinning aura into it, then stopping the aura to continue talking. “can’t afford that price.”

“Please,” the fae sneered. “I can afford your entire life, maestro.”

I continued to speak to her, using my aura to activate certain runes with certain words.

If this had been a normal conversation, I wouldn’t have been able to do this – trying to cast spells in your own native tongue was hard, especially if that tongue was still widely spoken.

But I wasn’t speaking a widely used tongue, or my native one. I was speaking in old Bradlewyr, a language the Fae had been part of the creation of, and a language perfectly suited to divination. A language most mortals no longer spoke.

It took me nearly half an hour of bartering back and forth with the Spring Queen for me to finish activating all the runes. The power of Medb’s castle filled the spell with power almost instantly, though, meaning the charging time was basically non-existent.

I raised my hands as a tendril of aura froze around my fingers.

“Too late,” I said.

“What?” the queen asked, and then her eyes went wide as my spell took effect.