The Abjurer: Chapters 1-2

So, looking over the poll, I'm going to post the chapters here. Sorry for the inconvience, I know a few people didn't want that, but there's no perfect solution, so I just went with the most popular. 

I'll be posting two chapters Tuesday, and two on Thursday for as long as I've got reasonable backlog, then will just be posting one each day. 

I'd also like to remind everyone that this is rough draft - it may not resemble the final product at all!

-

It was a rainy summer day when House Elide’s power was broken.

I was sitting in my room, contemplating the schematics for the stratified defense array that I’d been sent by the witches who swore their loyalty to Archmage Franklin Roark.

The design was simple – too much so, in my opinion. It was a series of three disks, each of which held three sacrificed lives into them in order to power their enchantments.

The first disk held a series of divination arrays on it, designed to detect incoming attacks and communicate to the necessary other disk to help stop it.

The second disk held a series of spells designed to stop incoming attacks from a sorcerer or mortal – blocking bullets, fire, lightning, and other elements.

The third disk was clearly meant to help defend against other types of attacks. It reminded me of my ghost plate, to an uncanny degree, and I actually wondered if they both had been designed off the same set of spells.

Overall, it was an impeccably balanced design – everything should flow together well, better than anything I’d ever created. But the pieces that made up the design? I could see clear issues with all three of them.

The divination magic was laughable. Sure, it could detect a lot of different things – physical attacks, temperature differentials, and runes for at least a dozen different spell languages, many of which I didn’t recognize. It could even detect magic from non-human sources, like Fae or Elementals.

But a pile of dictionaries is no use if the translator’s terrible, and the Witch who had done the spellwork was… Well, I didn’t want to call them incompetent. Inexperienced with divination magic, perhaps?

It used the constant stream of Aura that the three souls in the disk produced to send out a series of rhythmic, directional pulses, overlapping them so that none of the pulses left any gaps for an incoming spell to slip through.

I think that the reason they’d set it up this way was to conserve power, but that was utterly ridiculous. A simple, stable field around the disk would half the amount of runes that were needed, and would have a far cheaper Aura cost. The excess power could then be flowed into the other defenses as needed.

The second one, which defended against the incoming physical and elemental attacks, was a lot better. The spell designers had clearly been in their element here, but I could still see a handful of extraneous pieces that I could improve on.

I wasn’t a master abjurer – the class over the summer had mainly focused on theory and ward bypassing – but most of this spell’s countermeasures weren’t actually abjuration. It seemed to primarily be focused on a field of force that it could increase the density of as needed to stop incoming attacks, layered with a series of spells I was tempted to call comfort spells, if they hadn’t been turned up to such an insane degree.

They maintained a sort of normalcy bubble inside of the field, which would stop temperature extremes and charge from entering the bubble.

The main issue I saw was that the normalcy bubble would block both at once. That was fine if a lightning bolt was the attack – that would carry plenty of heat alongside it.

But if they were stuck inside a freezing area, it would waste power on stopping any charge buildup, even if divination wasn’t detecting any charge.

The third array could have been amazing, or it could have been trash. It was hard to tell. I wasn’t much of a charm mage, and things like luck, space, and sympathetic connections were all fairly foreign to me. I’d picked up a tiny amount from watching Tara, though, and I’d seen the ghost plate spell, which seemed to come from the same core as this one.

Tara could probably improve the spell some, but I’d promised to put my full effort into it, not the effort of other people.

Even with my lack of mastery in the topic, I could see that it was probably more effective than my own ghost plate. The permanent block it maintained was a shell around the person, overlapping with the edges of the force field and the normalcy bubble.

The only problem that I could see was actually in the shaping components for the shell. It wasn’t a perfect sphere. Instead, it warped and bent strangely in a few spots, creating weak points.

I suspected, though I didn’t know, that this was because the more ephemeral forces that the ghost shell was supposed to defend against weren’t quite as easy to guide on a large scale. My ghost plate had invoked the shape of armor to block it, but this wasn’t really invoking a shape, just shaping the effect.

Invoking an actual sphere shouldn’t be too hard, though. It’d put a bit more of a tax on the Aura that the disk produced, but I thought it should be well within its ability to maintain.

The one part of the design that I had no way to improve upon, however, was the interlocking internal spell that lay within the three spells. Not only could I not improve upon it, I wasn’t even sure what it did.

I recognized a handful of its parts – there were elements in similar with the runes that the divination aspects ran on, elements that reminded me of the sympathetic linking that I’d done with my lightning glove, and elements that seemed to be some sort of mass information storage that were comparable to the memory saber.

But I didn’t know what it would actually do – take in… something, and store it for… something.

The most annoying part was that several of the stabilization and power flow lines in it had been left out – no doubt intentionally.

Oracle put forward the suggestion that it was storing the information to be taken apart later, as a method of stealing spells. That didn’t seem wrong, but it did seem incomplete.

I was considering the spell when someone burst into Osheen and my room. I let out a surprised yip and flung my arms up, my defensive spells powering around me. I lowered my hands and let out a breath when I saw that it was just Osheen.

“Sorry,” he said, quietly shutting the door behind him. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”

“It’s fine,” I said, shaking my head. “What’s going on?”

“Have you read the newspaper today?” Osheen asked, reaching into his coat and withdrawing one.

I shook my head and he passed it to me. I scanned the title and felt my eyebrows slowly creep up.

The newspaper he’d handed me reported on the destruction of one of the largest manors owned by House Elide. Almost everyone within had suffered from some sort of horrible accident in their escape from the crumbling house. There were more than fifty dead or severely injured – both nobles and servants alike. Even Trenton Elide, their archmage, had suffered a back injury after heading to a panic room, rather than escaping the manor. He’d lived, but he may never be able to walk again, even with healing magic.

The manor seemingly had fallen to natural causes and decay, a previously unknown group of termites that had slipped through the wards and some unlucky rusting on bracing beams causing a fracture in the worst way. There had been no evidence of magic from anyone outside of House Elide in the manor, so the newspaper reported it as a tragic accident.

“Tara,” I said, looking up at Osheen. He pressed his lips together and nodded grimly.

“That’s what I thought too. She used the stained-glass spell set that we got last semester to attack with her curse magic without getting caught.”

I bit my lip as I considered the article.

“So what do we do?” I asked. “If we confront her, she could get upset. I’ll report to the Ligature that the bad luck was probably an attack from Tara. But if she keeps this up, she’s going to get caught eventually.”

“I already sent a report to the Ligature,” he said. “They wanted us to dissuade her, but…”

“I… I think the best course of action would be to let her in on my plan,” I said.

“You’re still thinking of going through with it?” he asked, surprised.

“I am,” I said. “I’m going to look for a way to break the compact, but… Even if I can’t, I’ve got a few ideas for ways I can get around or wiggle through the limits of the oath. For example, if I just set up some wide area memory spells, and didn’t trigger them, I wouldn’t be sharing the information with anyone. A bit like how I wrote it in my journals. If someone was to read them, they’d find out, but I wouldn’t be telling them.”

A dubious expression passed over Osheen’s face, but I held up a hand to forestall him.

“If you convince me that it is my responsibility, then I wont be able to do it. So, and I say this with love, but shush.”

I smiled at him, and he gave a half a smile back in response.

“Won’t that still incur a pretty heavy Aura tax once you activate them?” he asked, “or on whoever actually did activate them, I suppose. And the nobility would definitely track them down, or you down.”

“That’s a snag in the plan that I haven’t entirely solved,” I admitted. “Getting someone else to use the stained glass spell set to activate it could solve the next problem, but they’d need to intimately familiar with the way that I’d set up the rituals to begin with, which just loops back around again. I’ve considered just activating it myself – I’d lose a lot of my Aura, but I’m not using it for much anyways. Even if I keep the barest sliver to activate rituals, I should be able to work as a witch. I’d lose my ability to use foci well, but I don’t rely on those too much anyways. It would hurt, don’t get me wrong. I’d prefer to avoid it, but… I’m in a rare position where it would hurt me less than it might for someone else. Anyways, we’ve kind of wandered far afield.”

Osheen’s frown had returned, but he gave a slow nod.

“Alright… to Tara’s, then?” he asked.

“To Tara’s.” I agreed.

We arrived in Tara’s office to find her sitting at her desk, reading a thin volume of spells that she’d written herself. She looked up when we arrived and smiled at us.

“Please, shut the door. I think we need to talk.”

“Agreed,” I said, shutting the door behind me.

Oracle opened my third eye then, and I noted that Tara had heavily increased the wards that she had on her classroom.

“You attacked House Elide,” Osheen said. He didn’t sound accusatory, simply factual.

“I did,” she said in a neutral tone. “Do you have a problem with that?”

“A bit,” Osheen admitted. “I’m worried about the innocent members of the house – the servants and the children.”

That hadn’t even occurred to me, and given the slowly deepening frown that crept across Tara’s face, she hadn’t considered it either.

“And I’m worried about the political implications,” I said. “Tara, you know that half of the Archmage council is just waiting for any excuse to declare war on Zheren and annex them. You were there for the conversation, just like me.”

She bit her lip, and I could feel her dancing along the edge of her decision.

“Tara,” I said gently. “You have every reason to want revenge on the nobility. I don’t deny that. And I’m not asking you to stop looking for revenge, either. Just…”

I paused for a moment and shrugged.

“Don’t be so overt.”

Her eyes narrowed, and I saw a glint of something I didn’t like in them.

“I can’t attack them again so overtly,” she said. “They have their panic rooms under heavy wards, and it’s hard for me to find them. They’re some of the only parts of their manors that run on full wards all the time. I was only able to do this thanks to the information your boyfriend gave me.”

I nodded, but didn’t say anything else.

“Fine. I’ll keep it more subtle.”

“Will you also keep it to only those who wanted to go to war?”

“And my father,” Osheen said, his face hardening.

“I can agree to that, for now at least,” Tara said.

I let out a slow, heavy breath.

“Tara, I don’t think I should tell you this, but I’m going to tell you it anyways. Archmage Zachary Dormer is on our side. He wants to abolish the system that we have in place right now. But he’s weak, and he can’t do it alone.”

She gave me a considering look, but it wasn’t one that I was sure that I liked.

“I see,” was all she said before changing the subject. “Seth is back in town.”

My eyebrows shot up. I’d assumed that he wouldn’t be back until classes started on Monday, but if he was back now, I wasn’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth.

“I’ll go see him, then,” I said. “And… thank you for listening.”

Tara gave me a nod, and Osheen and I left. I turned to him as soon as we left.

“It isn’t your fault,” I said.

“But I was the one who gave her the information about where to strike,” he said, balling his fists in frustration.

“And you had no way of knowing what she was going to do with that information,” I said. “Hell, even I thought her vengeance would be a bit more focused, instead of literally bringing the house down on top of them.”

“I still should have known,” Osheen said.

“No,” I said. “Love, I can quite literally see the future. Only in the vaguest of terms, but I still can. I had no way of knowing.”

I sighed and rubbed his back. After a few moments he nodded.

“I’m going to go for a fly to clear my head while you talk to Seth.”

“See you in a bit,” I said, leaning up to peck his cheek, then headed off to meet Seth.

---

I flicked my third eye open as I walked, idly watching the pulsing Aura of the tree. When I’d first opened my third eye, it had been completely overwhelming, but now I was well used to it.

I knocked on the door to Seth’s room, and he opened the door a moment later.

“Evan,” he said, sounding surprised. “I must admit, this is a surprise. Have you decided to take a combat class this year?”

“No sir,” I said. I reached into my pocket and withdrew the invitation that the Silver Queen had given me. His eyes widened and he took in a ragged breath.

“How?” he asked, then shook his head and ran his fingers through his silver beard. “You’d best come in then.”

As I followed him in, I tilted my head one way, then the other. There was something off about Seth, and…

Oh.

He was hiding his power. He had to be. I couldn’t see through the power suppressing arch-star – as far as I knew, not even archmage sight could do that.

But the only magics that he had visible were his three familiar bonds and his shifter nature, and the three arch-stars that I’d always seen in his aura.

There was no way that a professor of druidry didn’t have a single boon from something in his Aura. Draven had hundreds – even if Seth only had a tenth of that, he should still be lit up like a bonfire.

“Why are you staring at me?” Seth asked.

“You hide your power too much,” I said, speaking before my mouth could bother to consult with my brain, “It makes it obvious you’re stronger than you appear.”

Seth’s eyes widened and he crossed his arms over his massive bear of a chest.

“I’d heard you’d become a hell of a diviner, but…” he shook his head, “were you checking me the instant I got back to Yesgol?”

“No,” I said, “just when I came in.”

“You’re almost as paranoid as Tara,” he said with a chuckle. “Anyways, you’re right, I am hiding my power, and I plan to continue to do that. But this all has very little to do with that invitation.”

“You’re right,” I said, “sorry. What can you tell me about it? I know that it’ll meet on the Winter Solstice, but that’s about it.”

Seth reached into his coat pocket and withdrew a very similar invitation.

“It seems two people from Paerús will be here this year. That’s quite unusual, most of the time the representatives are from other nations. But… You really shouldn’t go. What’s your title?”

“Maestro of Defense,” I said after a moment of wracking my brains to recall what the Silver Queen had called me.

“Maestro?” he said, running his hand through his hair again. He let out a low groan. “That’s not great. You really shouldn’t go.”

“I don’t exactly have a choice in the matter,” I said.

“Alright,” he said, biting his lip. “What do you actually know about fae and fae parties?”

“I’ve successfully negotiated with the Fae a few times,” I said, “they can’t lie, but do deceive. They don’t like iron. The basics, essentially.”

“Aye, that’s just the basics. Do you know how their hierarchy works?”

“No,” I admitted.

“The weakest Fae are non-sapient monsters. A step up from those are mostly sapient, but not quite humanoid ones – like your own familiar, I’d guess. Those two are the most common ones to be familiars, since they need to focus on growing their power. Those with humanoid intellect are the next step up. From there, they have Maestros. Those are Fae who have distinguished themselves within a certain aspect of magic. For this example, we’ll use winter and ice.”

“There’s obviously a difference, but what is it?” I asked.

“A Maestro of Winter has mastered all, or almost all, of the aspects of Winter magic. Ice, death, wind, stasis, and more besides. A Maestro of Ice has mastered ice.”

I nodded and withdrew my journal and began to write down notes.

“A step above Maestro is Lord or Lady. The first refers to anyone, while Lady refers only to Fae who actively choose to present as female. If you’re not sure, use Lord. Even if they present female, Lord is still correct.”

“Alright,” I said.

“And above Lord is Queen, King, or Sovereign. Use Sovereign if you’re not sure,” he said.

“There’s only one Sovereign for each court, right?” I asked. “And who would be more powerful? A Sovereign of Ice, or a Lord of Winter?”

“Not at all,” Seth said, shaking his head. “Winter, Summer, Autumn, Vernal, Land, Sea, and the Wild Hunt all have multiple Sovereigns. As for which would be stronger… The Sovereign would be stronger in raw power, but the Lord would be more flexible, and in my opinion, more dangerous.”

I wrote down each of those names. I’d been told to make a fool of the Vernal Court’s ambassador, after all.

“A Sovereign is needed to declare yourself independent, then?” I asked.

“Right,” he said. “Your Silver Queen, for example, infamously had a very bad falling out with her younger brother, a King of Autumn, and left the Autumnal court to form her own. She has a few Lords and Maestros, but no other Queens.”

“You know the Silver Queen?” I asked. Was he secretly a member of the Ligature?

“Not personally,” he said, “I’m closely aligned with a powerful semi-independent yeti tribe. But I’ve heard of her. She was a Queen of Change before she became called the Silver Queen.”

Change…

The knowledge I’d gathered from using the Silver Power two years ago resonated with that. It was… right… in a way I couldn’t quite explain.

I had, on occasion, idly wondered what made the Silver Power so balanced, so useful to hide, to attack, and to defend. But I’d been thinking about it the wrong way. Each of those were an expression of change.

And of course, change was an aspect of Autumn.

“Alright,” I said. “Is there anything else I should know about the Fae?”

“Plenty,” he said with a snort. “But for an introductory course, that should be plenty. Now, on to Fae parties. What do you know about them?”

“Time can get funky?” I asked. “There are myths about people partying with the Fae for a day there, only to come out way in the future. Is that something I need to worry about?”

“Not in this case,” he said, “though there will likely be a time dilation effect in instance, the ones who are stuck there for hundreds of years usually are actually there for years and years, and simply don’t realize it, due to how deep in debt to the Fae they became. And Winter dilates time in the other way. You may be at the party for several days, but only a day will pass in the normal world.”

That sounded extremely useful. I knew charm magic could effect time to some extent, but I didn’t know if it was something that could be used to my advantage. I filled it away for later.

“What else?” I asked.

“Bring a gift for the host,” he said. “And I do mean that. Make sure anyone you bring does as well, though you don’t have to bring one for the familiars.”

“I think the Silver Queen has –” I started to say, but he cut me off.

“No, that’s a gift from who you’re representing. You want to bring a gift of your own. You’re an enchanter, right?”

“I am,” I confirmed.

“Good. Make something. Make it beautiful, or make it practical, or better yet, make it both. An ornate weapon or armor that she can give to her attendants or lords, maybe.”

My mind flashed to the bar of silver that I’d gotten from the ritual chamber, and I nodded.

“Alright,” I said.

“Good. You won’t regret it,” he said. “You’re also going to be allowed to bring an entourage.”

“How many people?” I asked.

“Depends,” he said. “But for a court as weak as the one you’re representing? I’d guess only one, and any familiars that you and your retainer have the services of.”

I nodded. It would have to be Osheen, unless he didn’t want to go. I was glad I didn’t have to pick between Osheen and Oracle.

Oracle sent a pulse of agreement, not wanting to have to be separated from me while I was in danger.

“Should I bring some iron to protect me?” I asked.

“No!” he said, shaking his head frantically. “That’ll come off as an insult to the host, and you do not want to insult Medb. Of all the Fae, she’s the one I’d least want to insult.”

“Okay,” I said, nodding.

“No, you don’t get it,” he said. “I mean that. Out of all Fae in existence, Medb is the single entity I’d least want to offend. Her power… You may think an Archmage is powerful, and according to the records I’ve seen, you’ve had some dealings with a lesser Queen before, but Medb is a greater Queen. Do not offend her, no matter what.”

I nodded seriously to show him that I was listening, then wrote down ‘don’t annoy Medb’ down, and underlined it twice.

“Thank you. What else should know?”

“Everyone at the party has the aegis of Medb’s guest. That means you’re fine to eat and drink without fear. In fact, you should eat a moderate amount, to ensure you don’t insult her hospitality. Don’t be a glutton, but eat a normal amount for you.”

I nodded and wrote that down too.

“Since everyone is under her protection, that means the only way to start a true fight is to challenge someone to a duel. If you cause intentional injury to someone outside of a duel, you incur a debt to both the person you injured, and to Medb, since she’s hosting.”

I let out a slow breath. I’d need to find a way to insult and make the Vernal Court’s representative look like a fool without any sort of attacking. That wasn’t a shock to me – they were likely to be a Lord or Sovereign, while I was a lowly Maestro – but it was good to have the confirmation.

“What else should I know?” I asked.

“Hmm. That’s most of the basics,” he said. “Avoid the booze. You wouldn’t be indebted by drinking it, but the best tool you have for survival is your wits, and you don’t want that dulled by alcohol. And… you’re a diviner, so you should definitely make a detection for if you’re minds been intruded on. Plenty of Fae can quite literally radiate emotions, and it’s best to know when you’re being affected by one. Do you speak the language of Old Bradlewyr?”

“I do,” I said.

“Good. Try to use it over the basic tongue whenever possible. Most of the Fae that are there will speak it, and they look fondly on those memories. It could score you a bit of respect.”

“Duly noted.”

Seth leaned back in his chair and let out a long, slow breath.

“If you have any other questions, please come to me.”

“I do, actually, though it isn’t related to this.”

“Oh?” he said. “What other trouble have you gotten yourself into.”

If only he knew.

“I haven’t done a ton of research into shifters. Is it true that you can pass on the gift, or curse, however you want to consider it?”

“It is,” Seth said, “but you shouldn’t take it, if you’ve been offered. The wards that you need to hold you in on a full moon are extremely expensive and take a lot of power to maintain. The benefits the rest of the month are nice, but it isn’t worth it. That’s assuming that you can survive the initial transformation without going feral, which not many do. It’s not as risky as vampirism, but the survival rate’s still a bit under half.”

“I need power,” I said, biting my lip.

“You don’t,” he said gently. “Just wait, you’re growing at an incredible pace. You’ll be able to stand out among any group below the Archmages soon. When you graduate, how many courses will you be an adept or higher in?”

“I’ll be a journeyman information mage, scryer, artifact maker, and an adept abjurer.”

“Four things. I was only three, and I’ve gotten fairly powerful, if I say so.”

“Are you an archmage?” I asked.

“No,” he said, and I thought he wasn’t lying. Of course, it was possible he simply was a good liar, but his words seemed genuine. “But I stand just beneath them. But of course you already knew that,” he said with a small grin.

“I did,” I said, “but arch-stars aren’t everything.”

“True enough,” he agreed. “But by your own logic, power isn’t everything.”

I felt a bit of frustration at that.

He was right, but at the same time, I needed something to bridge the gap between me and Archmage Roark. I’d been able to hold him off just fine when he was only using his tattoo, but the instant he actually tried, he’d treated my best like it was nothing.

I felt his huge hand land gently on my shoulder and looked up at him.

“You don’t need to become a shifter or a vampire or anything else to become stronger. Do what you do best – enchant. You can do it.”

He rose and sighed.

“Now if you’ll excuse me, I do need to do some paperwork.”

I nodded and left, but as I walked back to my room, I found myself mulling over his words.

Do what I do best. What did I do best?