The Abjurer: Chapter 13-14

The way I saw it, I had twelve spells I needed to make, and I only had a bit more than two months left to make them.

The following week, I didn’t go to any class except Tara’s.

Nor the week after that, nor the week after.

I spent three weeks in a full enchanting fugue, breaking for only two reasons.

I slapped down a folder in front of Jerimiah Heenling.

“This contains a modular ward schematic that you may find useful. In addition, it contains considerable details on Archmage Roark’s defensive array project.”

When Roark had made me swear my oath, he’d spoken in past and present tense, only touching on the future when he talked about killing Eira Talik. I’d sworn to not reveal any of the sensitive information I had learned.

I’d learned this information after that day, so it wasn’t covered by the oath.

“How did you…?” Jeremiah asked, a shocked look spreading over his face.

“Help me build this ward on an enchanted item that intersects with five others, in a way that can switch on and off easily, and I’ll give you the full folder.”

“Deal,” Jerimiah said instantly. “How can I help?”

We spent two days working together on building the modular ward into a belt. It was a strange experience for me.

I didn’t like Jerimiah. He’d not been as rude to me as George had been, but he wasn’t a great person. I knew from Osheen’s comments that he abused servants.

But I couldn’t deny that he was exceptionally competent. I learned more about integrating wards into enchantments in those three days than I did in all of my courses so far.

I briefly wondered how much more of a resource Paerús would have if they encouraged witches to cast cooperative magic. That was how Zheren powered their ward, after all.

The second break I had was considerably more interesting and important than the first.

Kelsie, Osheen, and myself all gathered in a small clearing in the middle of the woods. Osheen had helped burn away some of the brush, and I’d cast a few basic alarm wards over it.

Nothing too strong, however. I didn’t want to interrupt Kelsie’s ritual.

“So, I’m going to be opening a portal to the Elemental Fields,” she explained as she poured powdered obsidian out on the ground. “Specifically, I’m opening the portal to a location known as the Birthlord Volcano. It’s home to a lot of magma elementals, including the odd Magma Titan.”

“How did you learn to open a portal there?” I asked.

“While you’ve been in an enchanting frenzy, Kelsie’s been helping me deepen my connection with Bridgette,” Osheen explained. “She had to fly there on her own. I know the location, since my father used it as a training ground a few times, but I don’t know its planar coordinates. Bridgette’s acting as a bridge. Her vessel will be on this end, and her true body is where we need the portal to be.”

“I just have to open a bridge,” Kelsie explained. “Then the hard part is up to… All of us.”

“How so?” I asked.

“Osheen’s going to scale the volcano with Bridgette and hold off monsters while she bathes in the volcano to increase her power. You’re going to connect to the planes and alter your aura on a fundamental level. And I’m going to bargain with the Birthlord that the volcano is named after.”

“I thought you mainly fought with power from the Fae?” I asked.

“Yeah, well…” she grimaced. “I wasn’t able to replace my spear. I need a new weapon, and the Birthlord is somewhat infamous for his creation capabilities.”

“I see,” I said, then went quiet to watch her work.

The process reminded me somewhat of that, but it had a lot less runework to my surprise. Less components too, though the ones she did use were more overtly magical.

The chant she used was long, going on for a full hour of nonstop, incredibly quick speech in a language that I didn’t know. It was full of strange catches and clicking sounds that didn’t fit with any language I’d even heard of.

Unlike the summoning of Oracle, the appearance of the gate was slow. The obsidian began to glow, and small slivers of it drifted up into the air. Thin strands of fire extended from each of them, and a faint red glow started to creep in from the outside towards the center. It grew darker and darker red, and then other colors slowly swirled in, like dropping an inkblot into water.

“It’s done,” Kelsie said. “Go!”

Osheen stepped through the portal. I sat down and closed my eyes, then sent my Aura into the ligature knot over my head. I snaked another deep into the earth to touch the buzzing power of the Fae leyline owned by the Silver Queen, and then a third into the portal to the gate to the Elemental Fields.

One of the core principles of forming an arch-star is pressure. I’d formed my first to help fight an assassin, and my second to avoid getting caught by the nobility while stealing their secrets.

This one wasn’t nearly as much external pressure, but there was a lot of internal pressure.

If I failed, then this arch-star would be, essentially, unavailable to me.

And I could only have as many chances as I could maintain my Aura in this stretched state, while also powering my portal to the Wandering Path.

Which was not a long time. My Aura was easily one of the weakest aspects of a mage, and this forced me to rely entirely on it.

And there was some pressure from the outside too. I wouldn’t be able to check on Osheen until I was either out of Aura, or I’d formed the arch-star.

I took in a deep breath and shot my Aura into the other realms as hard as I could, until it felt like my brain was about to shatter.

Then I stretched further.

Even though my eyes were closed, my vision went entirely white.

I was suspended in a white void, with only myself and Oracle’s presence in the back of my mind.

It reminded me of the moment in my first year when I’d connected a spell to my lifeline, and the healer had needed to pull me back from the edge of death. I’d been in a void not unlike this one.

Then the void faded, and I saw myself standing among a field of wheat that was burning down. I felt a strange tug, a magical pull to flee from the flame.

I turned to leave, but…

A compulsion?

I focused my will on it. My cloak should have conjured a mind bubble to protect me, but in this strange, dreamlike state, it hadn’t for some reason. Perhaps this was a compulsion that I was laying on my own mind?

But even without it, I’d had more experience fighting against compulsions in the last three years than most mages had in a lifetime.

I forced myself to not run, and dragged my feet towards the fire.

The compulsion redoubled and I turned and fled, then forced my will to reassert itself over my body. I dragged myself towards the fire again, and the compulsion grew stronger.

I shuffled forwards, each step barely carrying me a centimeter. Some steps didn’t cause me to move at all.

But still, I pushed.

The compulsion reached its crescendo, then shattered and I fell into the flame.

Instead of a void of white, it was a void of fire now.

Then it faded and I found myself in a dark forest. The path ahead of me was gone entirely, and hungry eyes stared at me in the dark.

There was no compulsion this time. A monster lunged out of the dark, and I moved out of its way, but… It felt… Wrong. My limbs were too fast. I moved with a speed and grace that made the monsters look like they were trapped in molasses.

I could dodge forever, without strain.

So instead, I closed my eyes and embraced the void. Fangs sunk into my neck, and I was gone again.

I appeared on an infinite plane of gray glass that reminded me of the Wandering Path.

But the Wandering Path was a dead world.

And I was not alone. I could feel presences in the air around me, humming with a power that could challenge Archmage Roark.

And there was one other being too.

I opened my eyes, having somehow taken in the plane with them closed, and saw a man standing there.

For a second, I thought it was Draven, but as we approached each other, I realized that it was me.

I moved confidently, and wore a suit that looked like one of Draven’s, and the power I held was far greater than anything I’d built, including the staff.

And an ocean of blood followed me. Each step sent a ripple of power, of crimson blood.

I stared at myself.

“What did it cost you?” I asked.

“Osheen’s life,” the other me replied.

“What did you gain?”

“I’m one of the only three remaining Archmages in Paerús. I destroyed the capital myself, tore down the new king from his throne.”

“Did you tell them?”

“I couldn’t. The compulsions in my new form…”

“A new way,” I said. “This one isn’t worth the price.”

“Yes,” the other me said.

The other me dissolved into dust, and I kept walking forwards.

I faced one more me, and a thousand more of me, I wasn’t sure which.

Finally, I stood before a gravestone.

“Here lies Evander Tailor,” I read aloud. “He died so we may life in truth.”

I put my hand on the stone and closed my eyes.

“Yes,” I said.

I didn’t know what this was. Tara had said that forecasting the future more than a few seconds was almost impossible, so I wasn’t sure if I was seeing potential futures, or if this was the raving of a dying brain, or if it was something else altogether.

But even if it was laying my destiny bare before me, I could accept death if it would let others live in truth.

I didn’t want to die. But if that was the price, then I’d made my choice.

I sat up with a gasp. I was in the middle of the clearing, my body slick with sweat. I’d fallen over at some point, and judging by the dirt stains all over me, I had been thrashing around.

I rose to my feet shakily and lit up my Aura.

It had always been small, but now it barely covered my body.

But above my head hung three stars and the Ligature’s knot.

I turned to face the open portal, then picked up my staff.

Osheen needed my help.

~~~

It was hot on the other side of the portal, the kind of heat that sank into my bones, and the climb up the volcano left me sweating and shaking.

Each step drained a bit more of my Aura too, to keep me here. I didn’t belong in this world, and I didn’t have a patron protecting me.

At the top, Osheen was battling a pair of magma titans with his tattoo, sweeping force beams across their bodies. I lifted my staff and a blast of lightning smashed into one of them, blowing them backwards.

“Need some help?” I asked.

Osheen was too well trained to turn around, but I could hear the grin in his voice as he spoke, all while powering his force armor and enhancement, then matching the titan’s blow with one of his own.

“Wouldn’t mind some. How did it go?”

There was a screech as a bird made of stone dove at him, and I blasted it with lightning.

“Weirdly, but… On the plus side, I formed my arch-star.”

“Good!”

Osheen ducked a swing from the titan, then shoved it into the depths of the volcano. His body flared with light as he did so.

I’d never seen him pour so much power into his tattoo before, but with all the heat pouring in, his Aura was doing just fine.

But mine…

“I’ve only got a few more minutes before I need to turn back.”

“That’s fine,” Osheen said, a force bolt ripping through a snake of flame that leapt at him. “Nothing too dangerous has shown up anyways.”

As if to prove him wrong, a massive rumbling came from the mountain behind us. Osheen powered his armor and looked behind him, and I called my own armor.

A man made of stone, easily fifteen feet tall, strode towards us.

Osheen raised his hand and poured power into his force beam, but the behemoth raised his hand, and magma gushed out of it, meeting the force and shattering the spell.

Osheen cursed and shot into the air, trusting my armor to help me weave through the backsplash. He sent a series of bursts at the behemoth, but nothing happened. I raised my staff and unleashed every charge of power I had left in it.

There were only three charges left, but they left a handful of cracks running through the thing’s chest.

Osheen sent balls of fire at the behemoth, but they just made its skin glow.

Then the titan’s hand smacked him, and he tumbled downwards. A moment later, he was back in the air, but his flight was slower. He was clearly dazed from the blow.

My eyes narrowed and I sent a paralysis bolt at it, but it didn’t even slow. I was out of weapons, but…

“Osheen!” I shouted. “Heat it up as much as you can, but save enough Aura for a single immolation spell!”

Osheen’s Aura exploded around him in the air above me, and fire poured down on the behemoth like the wrath of an angry god. I stared in awe as I saw power streaming in from the air around him and into the spell, pushing it further and further.

And above his head, a third arch-star began to form. The elemental alignment arch-star.

I shouldn’t have been as surprised as I was. We stood where fire met earth, and Osheen had been raised to understand fire since he was a child.

But I couldn’t help but stare in awe as his flame rained down, its usual red color now mixed with flickers of blue and white.

“Fly in close and release an immolation spell in the opposite direction of his chest!” I shouted.

Osheen barreled in, molding the flame around him without looking.

Using his heat sense, I realized.

Then he spun around and sent an immolation spell, and the amulet that I’d made him triggered.

To draw extra power into the spell, and to make use of the ice components that I had, I’d altered the spell to draw out as much heat as it could from the air behind Osheen, then pack it into the immolation.

And with how much fire Osheen had poured into the behemoth, and the ambient heat, the cracks I’d made with my lightning blast were red hot.

Then, when the amulet triggered, they froze over, and the behemoth practically exploded, huge pieces cracking off and tumbling to the ground.

Osheen landed next to me and let out a slow breath.

“You ok?” he asked.

“Yeah,” I said. “Are you, though?”

“I’m fine,” he said. “A bit dazed from the fall, but I’ll be fine.”

Then the rocks began to pull themselves back together, melting and reforming.

“Oh, come on!” I cried. “How?!”

“Wait,” Osheen said. “She’s almost back. We just need to slow it down…”

He went to work with his force beams, slicing off chunks of the molten rock. Thankfully, this molten healing state was a lot easier to injure than the normal one.

Unfortunately, slicing chunks off didn’t stop the behemoth’s slow reformation.

I used my staff to draw out a basic ritual in the dirt, little more than an oversized impetus glyph, powered by ambient Aura, rather than mine. I released the power as soon as it was ready.

Compared to Osheen’s beams of force, this barely left a scratch, but it was all I could really do.

The behemoth finished reforming, and it let out a rumbling laugh.

And then a bird the size of a horse smashed through its chest, and it crumbled a second time.

“Bridgette!” Osheen cried happily.

That was the last thing I heard as my vision went dark, my Aura strained past its new, much lower limit.

I awoke that evening as my Aura drank in the power of the stars, thanks to my bond with Oracle.

“How did it go?” I asked Osheen as I rose.

“It went okay,” he said. “With Bridgette claiming a core from the center of the volcano, and absorbing its power, she was strong enough to hold off the behemoth while I carried us back to the portal, then she fled to return to her normal hunting grounds.”

I felt a flush creep up my face and neck.

“I’m sorry you had to carry me out,” I said.

“Don’t worry about it,” Osheen said seriously. “If you hadn’t been there, I probably wouldn’t have pushed my flames as hard as I did, I’d have just fled. Bridgette had already gotten to the heart of the volcano.”

“That wasn’t the arch-star that you wanted, though,” I said.

“It wasn’t,” he acknowledged with a dip of his head. “But I can’t say that I’m extremely unhappy about it. It may not shock my father, but it’s a solid arch-star that’s…”

He shook his head.

“Honestly, it reminds me of wielding Wraithflame, back when the wand lent me its power willingly.”

I reached out and touched his hand gently.

“I’m sorry, still. But I’m glad you can accept it.”

“Thank you,” he said.

We spent the rest of that evening relaxing, and the following day, I returned to my enchanting fixation.

Six days later, I stood in a testing room with Osheen, holding the results of my months of labor.

“A fifteenfold defense?” Osheen asked.

“No, it’s a threefold, fivefold defense,” I said. “It’s three sets of five, not fifteen.”

Osheen looked at me. He blinked, and shook his head.

“I’m going to pretend I understood the difference, and just agree.”

I stuck my tongue out at Osheen, and he smiled easily.

“So, you have your initial five, then you added in the Assassin’s Cloak, a rune detection spell, future sight, the enhancement spell, and… What else?”

“A modular ward based off of Zheren’s wards,” I said, “And then abjuration stuff. It has disruption, alteration, and reflection built in, and I can toggle which one I want to use. To make sure I had the space for continual growth, I made one of the parts of the spell a massive memory bank, rather than including that in the abjuration spells themselves. Finally, I included a portion of the spell designed to drain ambient aura with the Stained-Glass spell set. When it’s active, it will provide the cloak with a trickle of charge, and can disrupt other spells that are charging up. Then, I put the growth spell in the overlap between the three spells, so my spells should adapt to one another.”

“And you didn’t do anything with boosting Oracle or the bad luck buildup?” Osheen asked.

“I did only have so much time,” I said. “Anyways, I have plans for both. I’ve been looking at some spells for Oracle, though I don’t think I’m going to have the time to implement them this semester, not if I’m also going to help you make the scabbard, and make the sword.”

“Sixteen days left,” Osheen said.

“I’m rationing the time,” I said. “Trust me. I’m going to spar with you to get all the spells I can in from you, then do the same with Lyn and Sarai. That should get me experience with a lot of the more common spells. The Faerie and Consumer magic I’ve woven into the defense should help it adapt faster than a normal spell would.”

“Let’s not just stand around talking about it, then.”

Osheen launched a flame lance at me, and I activated my cloak.

Power flowed through me, and I felt like my brain was going to break at the strain of holding it all. I’d already added the flame lance spell into the abjuration spells, and so as soon as it came within reach, I broke it and sent it back at Osheen.

He used a similar method to catch the fire and send it back at me, but rather than altering the spell, he was altering the fire itself.

Interesting… And a spell that I hadn’t added in.

Except that, thanks to the interplay of the divination spells, the memory bank, and the growth spell, it was now. Not very efficiently, and only a basic version, but enough that I was able to break it apart with spell disruption.

It drained more energy of the cloak than I would have liked, so I activated another one of the functions, draining power from the ambient aura to recharge it. Power sucked in, slowly starting to refuel the cloak.

Osheen shot a flame orb at me, and we repeated the sequence, slowly working through the flame spells he knew, before slowly working his way through the force spells that his tattoo granted him.

I couldn’t help but grin. It wasn’t the most technically perfect abjuration spell, not in the way that one of Travis’ was. But it melded my enchanting skill, my divination skill, my extraplanar knowledge, and the knowledge I’d stolen to create something far more than the sum of its parts.

My grin faltered slightly. I just hoped it would be enough to stand up to an archmage.

“Do you think it’s good enough to pass Travis’ class?” Osheen asked.

“It better be,” I said.

The following morning, I headed to Travis’ office early, before any of my classes even began.

“Good morning, Mister Tailor,” Travis said as he sipped on a cup of green tea. “How can I help you this morning?”

“I’m done,” I said. “I’ve made a spell that can hold against… Just about any type of magic.”

“Show me,” he said.

“No,” I said. “This is proprietary information, and you know it. It’s not the kind of secret that I should just hand out lightly. Sure, most of the magic that I’m using isn’t super easy to replicate, but if an enchanter with the right connections got ahold of it, they absolutely could.”

“Then you’re not going to pass the test,” he said, sounding annoyed.

I let a small smile curl at the corner of my lips.

“Is that so?” I asked. “How about this. Remember the stunt that you pulled in the beginning of class? How about I do the same, and take on you too.”

Travis frowned and took a long sip of his tea.

“Well,” he finally said, “I suppose you have signed the danger wavers, just like everyone else.”

That… didn’t inspire confidence. But I hadn’t just done this for one reason.

The class used a wide selection of magic from a variety of sources. This would give me an excuse to let my spells experience a wide variety of magic and adapt to it, which would hopefully help in the long run. Travis especially was a wildcard – he was a master enchanter in his own right, and he’d surely have some tricks. He wasn’t going to reveal everything in an exhibition like this, certainly, but he’d still want to show off some.