by V. St. Clair
Willow surprised him by drawing a wand with each hand, and in the time it took Asher to appreciate that one was a defensive wand and the other an offensive one, the Master attacked him.
Asher shielded himself automatically but was still pushed backwards by the force of impact from the collision of the spells. Even more alarming, whatever spell Willow had cast was melting through his invisible barrier, making it look like the air in front of him was warped and burning.
Well at least he’s taking me seriously as an opponent. If that spell had hit him directly, it would have killed him.
Asher had the disadvantage of only being able to cast one spell through his prism at a time, while Willow was able to rapidly switch from one hand to the other with his wands, so Asher’s Singe spell was deflected easily.
Obscure! Asher thought rapidly, twisting his prism to find the alignment and moving into the red fog that burst to life between them. If he could just lose himself in here, Willow wouldn’t know where to aim his spells. Unfortunately, this also meant that Asher couldn’t fire clearly either, but he’d deal with that in a moment…
“Ah!” Asher saw the spark of fire just in time to duck. The air exploded behind him, sending him hurtling forward onto his knees.
Suspend! He shot into the air, hovering above the cloud of red fog, wondering how Willow had found him so quickly. He sped up his spellcasting even more, cycling through alignments in no particular order as fast as he could find them.
Sear! Freeze! Pierce! Stun! Bind!
Willow had dispelled the fog and was waving his oak wand rapidly, blocking spell after spell, occasionally switching to his elder wand to work counter-spells.
Shrink! Ensnare! Break! Confuse! Draw!
The last one caught Master Willow off guard, and he wasn’t able to prevent the elder wand from being pulled from his hand. It soared towards Asher, who was both amazed and displeased to see that Willow still had half of the original wand length remaining.
His spell-casting efficiency must be phenomenal…
If so, Asher would run out of weapons well before his opponent, even with more prisms to start with. He cast a dampening spell with Willow’s wand, and the Master slashed at the air with his oak one as the spell hit him. Asher didn’t have time to celebrate the fact that he’d just dampened the Master’s power, because he was falling from the sky quite rapidly.
Damn, he cancelled my Suspend!
Asher searched frantically in his prism for Slow, but couldn’t find it in time, so he was forced to get creative and cast Liquefy at the ground just before impact. The ground gave way beneath him and he fell through a pool of dirt and sludge, coughing and kicking back towards the surface as Willow removed the dampening effect from himself. The Master drew a fresh wand—birch this time—though he used the oak wand to cast Boil on the sludge that Asher was trying to climb out of.
The liquid earth around him heated rapidly, and Asher panicked and cast Propel on himself to launch himself out of the dirt before he could get burned too badly, finally locating Slow and casting it to smooth his descent to the ground.
He dove behind Master Antwar to give himself time to swap prisms, as the one in his eyepiece was entirely consumed.
“Hey!” Antwar yelled, diving out of the way as Master Willow cast right at him, not bothered by his colleague being in the line of fire. Asher laughed as he compounded two violet prisms together and shielded himself from the attack, casting Sever and nearly lobbing off Willow’s head. Unfortunately, the man moved at the last minute, and the spell glanced off of his cheek, slicing it neatly open so that a thin trickle of blood pooled at the incision.
Vines shot out of the ground like tendrils around Asher’s legs, ensnaring him so tightly he couldn’t move and threatening to creep higher. Severing them individually would have been too slow, and a wide-focus spell would have taken his legs off right along with the vines, so Asher started a small earthquake instead.
A spell that powerful, even in such a limited area, consumed most of his compounded prisms, but the ground did give way beneath him and allow him to pull free of the vines. He rapidly pulled two more prisms to equip, though Master Willow knocked him onto his butt so hard that his teeth rattled before he could lock them into place.
Head throbbing, Asher looked up and saw Master Willow hovering in the air almost directly above him, the wind whipping his robes and making him look like a force of nature. How could Asher ever have considered him old or feeble? He barely had time to compound Break before the sky opened up above Willow and a column of fire blasted towards him.
The two spells collided in mid-air with a sound like an explosion, though rather than ricochet off of each other like usual, the opposing forces continued to slam against each other over and over again like battering rams, and Asher felt the strain on his Source, as though he was physically trying to hold back the column of fire with his bare hands.
A battle of wills then…
Or, to be more accurate, a battle of Sources. Whoever had the largest base of power and the most juice remaining would eventually overpower the other. Asher channeled all of his focus and willpower into his Breaking spell, sweat plastering his forehead from the effort—or perhaps it was all that fire directly above him. Willow was countering his effort with his own Source, though it was obviously difficult, because the man’s hands were shaking with the effort of channeling so much power through his Foci at once. The fact that he was used to wearing his Mastery Charm was a point in Asher’s favor at the moment, since the Master was forced to work without his amplification for a change.
For a long moment they were deadlocked, and then the column of fire gave way all at once, with the result that Asher’s fully-powered Break spell tore through the arena and began shattering the world around them.
“Time to go,” Willow called out as a shard of sky fell to the ground and exploded, dropping down beside Asher and catching his Mastery Charm onehanded as Antwar threw it. He pulled it back over his neck as Asher scrambled to his feet and took hold of his arm, and the two of them blinked out of the challenge arena together.
All three of them were now back in the translocation circle at Mizzenwald, Willow and Asher still breathing heavily from their recent fight. For the second time in a week, Asher was exhausted from Source fatigue.
“Sorry I keep breaking the arenas,” the latter said, mostly to break the silence.
“Your Source outlasted mine, so it isn’t surprising that the arena shattered with nowhere else for your considerably well-powered spell to go,” Master Willow answered.
Master Antwar looked at them both and said, “I believe I’ve seen enough.” He walked away from both of them, looking grumpy, and Asher had the distinct impression that he wouldn’t be receiving any more challenges from his mentor, which was fine by him.
To Willow, he said, “Even though the arena broke and my Source lasted longer than yours, I don’t feel as though I won that fight.”
“That’s because you didn’t,” the Master of Wands agreed with a nod, back to the calm, controlled demeanor he was accustomed to.
“I’ve never seen someone using two different wands at the same time before. It seems really unfair, since I can only use one prism at a time and I have to waste time tracing alignments.”
Willow gave him a small smile and said, “Are you surprised by the unfairness of the world? I didn’t see a point in sparing you, since I wanted to see how far you could be pushed, and you need to be prepared for this sort of thing in the real world anyway; as you yourself are keen on pointing out to us, the arenas are not always a true representation of what you’re likely to face.”
Asher frowned at having his words thrown back at him and said, “I wasn’t upset by it, just surprised. Here I always thought I was an amazingly fast caster, and I could barely keep up with your dual-casts.”
Willow tilted his head in concession and said, “If it makes you feel any better, you are incredibly fast, especially for a prism-use
r.” It sounded like an insult, but Asher knew better. The truth was that prism-users had some of the most powerful, diverse array of spells available to them, but they were also the only of the major arcana that required time for a person to find each spell before using it, which gave them an automatic disadvantage on speed.
“Thanks. I’m not going to lie, I thought you were going to be a lot slower and less powerful than you were. Heck, you barely used three wands during that whole fight and I used five or six prisms.”
“I’m much more efficient than you, but also more than three times your age,” Master Willow explained patiently. “I have been studying ways to improve my efficiency and reduce tangential magical spillage for longer than you’ve been alive; I could offer you some pointers to improve your own performance, if you’d like them.”
“Please, do,” Asher said without a trace of sarcasm. It was the first time he’d really fought someone above his level, and he was interested in learning how to improve himself.
“You have a naturally large Source, and you know it. This means that you have a tendency to throw more power than is necessary into each of your spells, going for the grand effect. I suspected it during your battle against the monsters in the arena, but with everything else going on it was hard to be certain; it’s one of the reasons I wanted to be present for your testing today.”
Asher frowned thoughtfully and said, “It isn’t that…or, it isn’t just that I want to look awesome. I’m not always sure if my spells will work at low power, and so just to be safe I channel some extra into it. Since I’m usually up against people or monsters weaker than me, I can afford to waste the power. Up until recently, I haven’t driven myself to the point of Source fatigue in years.”
The Master of Wands nodded and said, “That’s because you have rarely been forced to display your full potential. I used to do the same thing in regards to wasting power—most children do, actually.” He smiled at the scowl he earned for calling Asher a child. “But it’s a waste of Source power you might later need, and it consumes your instruments faster than necessary. If you want to reach the next level of proficiency, you will need to begin practicing with your spells at varying levels of willpower and energy in order to learn how much effort is truly necessary to get the desired outcome. Eventually it will become second nature to modulate your forcefulness to the situation.”
Asher nodded, accepting the advice.
“You used spells that I don’t know,” he admitted baldly. “Some of the ones I was blocking, I wasn’t even sure what they were or whether my shields would work against them. Heck, right out of the gate your spell almost melted my shield, and probably my face along with it.”
“I’m much older and more learned than you; of course I know spells you don’t,” Willow agreed pleasantly. “More will come to you with time and continued study.”
“But there are things that you have access to that I never will, not unless I become a Master or a member of the Council of Mages. Since most of you all think I’m obnoxious and the Council thinks my bloodlines are dirt, there are whole troves of knowledge I won’t ever get to explore, unless I can convince Aleric to share them with me.”
Master Willow tilted his head thoughtfully and said, “You don’t think your friend would share his knowledge with you?” ignoring the entire first part of Asher’s statement.
“I think…” Asher began, choosing his phrasing carefully, “…that Aleric is very competitive. Rightfully so, especially as the future head of a Great House. I’ve never really cared which of us is more technically proficient, but I’d be a fool to pretend that I’m not aware of the increased level of competition between us in recent years.”
Returning to Asher’s earlier point, Willow said, “Blood matters for less than people think. Neither of us hail from a Great House, and we have both done well for ourselves. Do not rule out a nomination to a posting like this just because of your lineage.”
“Well of course you got picked as a Master,” Asher vented a sigh of frustration. “You could have been born in a swamp and they would have nominated you; people like you.”
“People like you, too,” the Master of Wands observed mildly.
“Not the right people, apparently.” Asher scowled, folding his arms across his chest.
“Then you do care what others think about you? I’ve always wondered,” Master Willow said gently.
“Of course I care what people think of me,” he retorted, a little snappishly. “Contrary to popular belief, I’m not actually made of stone.” He was tired, his Source was fatigued, and he had just gotten his butt handed to him in an arena by the oldest and kindest Master at Mizzenwald.
Willow said, “That’s good to know,” and turned towards the school. “Well, this has been a very educational morning for me all around. I’m glad we dueled.” He walked away, his metallic red Mastery robes billowing out behind him in the sunlight.
Asher was about to go inside to see if it was lunch time yet, when the Master stopped and called out to him.
“One more thing, Asher, before you go inside.”
“Yes?” he called back, wondering what else the man had to say to him.
“Between me and you,” Willow began, “had you been fighting against your mentor…you likely would have won.”
He winked at Asher and turned away, returning to the school without another word. Asher smiled and considered that maybe the Masters weren’t so bad after all.
8
Bonk
Aleric was at a loss.
He had dropped his research topic in Prisms weeks ago, after learning that he and his best friend had been working on the same subject in secret for months without knowing it, furious at having wasted all that time for nothing. At the time, he had assumed that his work with Kirius Sark in Powders would cover the deficit in Prisms, and that he would be able to add his name to another groundbreaking discovery that would make his father overlook the fact that he dropped his research topic in his major of focus.
Unfortunately, their progress had become glacial almost immediately after he stopped working on Prisms, and he had a meeting with his father later in the week to review the House ledgers. There was almost no chance of him escaping before his father could ask about his studies, since the man always wanted a status update from him to prove that his extra year here wasn’t being wasted.
“I could have sworn that the magenta ultra-fine grind would work,” Master Sark said from beside him, wiping the sweat from his bald head with the back of his sleeve, metallic red Mastery robes discarded onto the chair behind him.
The Master of Powders leaned over the glass mortar and pestle in front of him and frowned thoughtfully at the congealed mess inside that was supposed to be a glossy black powder.
“Unless we made an error in our calculations, it should have,” Aleric refocused and began scanning his pages of notes, meticulously ordered and collated into a logical sequence.
“We triple-checked the numbers before trying this blend, though I suppose it couldn’t hurt to do it again…” Kirius sighed, still looking puzzled by their failure.
Aleric sat down and moved the floating ball of mage-light closer to him for visibility, tracing over each of the formulas he had detailed in his notes, checking all of his figures for the umpteenth time. His mind felt so bogged down with theoretical models and figures that he wasn’t even sure he would be able to detect a mistake if he saw it right now.
After ten minutes of silence between them, he said, “I still don’t see a problem with the math…unless our entire basis is erroneous?” That would be a nightmare. They’d have to start from scratch and redo everything if that were the case.
“No, no, the theory is sound, I’m sure of it,” Sark waved a hand dismissively at the thought. “Come look at this mess and tell me what you see.”
Glad for the chance to set down his notes, Aleric got to his feet and approached the worktable, staring down into the glass bowl of lumpy brown material.<
br />
“Starting with the most obvious, I see brown instead of black,” he began, running his fingers through his short blond hair. “Congealed, clearly, which is typically a sign of interrupted transference, or of tangential magical spillage.”
“Both can be expected with an endothermic reaction such as this one,” Master Sark said quietly, obviously trying to rack his brains and hoping that Aleric would provide fresh perspective.
“The finish is matte instead of glossy, which could be caused by burning, I suppose.” Aleric frowned, leaning closer to the bowl and pulling a magnifying glass closer to him to see fine distinctions in the powder. “There, and there, around the edges…I can see some evidence of burning.”
“Burning? You’re sure?” Master Sark motioned for him to step aside and give him a chance to look for himself. “That shouldn’t have happened at all; as I said, this reaction doesn’t generate heat.”
“Well, it certainly looks as though it did,” Aleric countered smoothly, glad that he was able to spot something that his mentor hadn’t. It made him feel like an important member of the team.
Sark looked pensive as he said, “Yes, I see it…that’s definitely char. But how in the world did we manage to get heat out of the reaction?”
“It almost suggests that we got more energy out of the reaction than we put into it,” Aleric offered hesitantly, because such a thing was unheard of. Everyone knew that energy could neither be created nor destroyed, only moved around a bit. Then again, perhaps they had simply found a source of heat that neither of them was aware of…
“You think we managed to siphon heat from something in this room?” Master Sark asked dubiously. “The alternative is that we somehow pulled it from the void-realm without creating a schism in the process, which would be incredible and unheard of.”
Aleric raised his eyebrows at the very idea of touching the other realm—the inverse to their own, forged in anti-magic and populated almost entirely by monsters that couldn’t be killed with normal magical weaponry. It was only possible to reach the void-realm by using magic that was powerful enough to render the space between them unstable, literally creating a tear that was referred to as a schism; not that anyone would want to cross into the other realm, which caused insanity in mages and rendered magical weaponry useless. Still, the prospect of harvesting energy from there had never occurred to him before…