by Tao Wong
I sat back down and glared at my failed experiments. Carrying around some pre-charged blocks to run as a Force Shield might work, but Force Shield was such a mana hog that they just didn’t last very long. Perhaps, with more experience and better materials, they might be useful. As for the Force Spikes, they could easily be knocked over, making them useless. Perhaps I could make them caltrops, but then I’d have to either adjust the container to activate, and form spikes around the block itself, or create four different wards.
The incessant clicking of a mouse and keyboard keys interrupted my thoughts once again, and I growled, suddenly tired. Damn it, I wanted my house back. “Can you be quiet?”
“I could if you got me a better mouse,” Lily shot back. “And maybe a new keyboard.”
“Go buy one yourself. I’ve got things to do,” I said and looked at my ward blocks again, the insistent clacking reaching my ears. Click. Clack. Click.
Oh. Huh. That’d work.
***
“You sure this will work?” Alexa asked later, as we set up for the rats. This time around, we had decided on an entirely different plan of attack. Rather than walking around trying to find the rats, we were going to attract them to us.
“I trust El,” I said, nudging a piece of meat a bit farther forward before I uncapped a potion. It was a simple attractant that would target the Devil Rats. It had cost more to get it specifically targeted, but since we didn’t want random creatures popping in, we had happily paid for the more expensive potion. Now, I carefully poured the solution on the meat before stepping backward and surveying our preparations. We’d chosen to make our stand at the entrance hallway, with a glass door to our backs, while spread in a semicircle around us were some of my newly created Force Spikes. Ahead of them, chilling the floor and the water we had splashed on the ground, were the cooling blocks, thin layers of ice already forming around the blocks. Hopefully, the slick flooring would slow and disturb the rats enough to buy us some time.
“You sure there’s only a dozen close by?” Alexa asked again.
“Yes,” I replied grumpily while I stood, watching.
“Because if we get swarmed—”
“We won’t be,” I reassured her. They might be smart enough to plan an ambush, but they wouldn’t be able to withstand the lure of the potion—or so El had promised us.
“Ah,” Alexa suddenly said, her eyes fixed on red eyes that glinted at us from the shadows. Rather than approach cautiously, the rats rushed us, a dozen in total. Within moments, they hit the icy floor and slid along the ground, their feet desperately scrambling for purchase. A few bounced against the wooden blocks, knocking them about while others scrambled through the gaps to rush us. Two unlucky rats actually stepped on the spikes, the shorter and more condensed spells launching Force Darts into their bodies before disappearing.
Alexa ignored all this, instead swinging her spear as the rats approached. In turn, I backed her up with tossed Force Missiles, using the spell to harry and injure the monsters that rushed us. Minutes of fur, sharp teeth, and claws and then the battle was done, the rats lying in pieces around us.
“Well, that wasn’t so bad,” I said as I gulped and waited for my breathing to calm down.
“Good. Because we’re going to have to do it again,” Alexa said, leveling her spear at another set of eyes.
“Damn.”
***
A short while later, we were staring around the mess of an entrance, privately glad we weren’t going to be the ones forced to do the cleaning. Alexa squatted a short distance away, washing a few wounds with iodine and verifying she was not further injured. I was keeping watch, grateful once again I had become the backline fighter that I was. Mages were squishy—everyone knew that!
Once Alexa was done and picked her spear back up, I bent down and reached out, recasting the Link and Scry spells in quick succession. A slow, pounding headache began to form behind my eyes before I let the spell go, my lips tight. Damn Scry spell was not getting any easier to use.
“We’re clear,” I said.
“Good. I’m going to take a look inside,” Alexa said, gesturing toward the retail complex. I frowned, my head tilted to the side.
“We’re clear,” I repeated.
“I know. It’s not that,” Alexa said. “I just want to look around.”
“But—” I clamped my mouth shut as I realized Alexa was already walking in, carefully placing her feet around the puddles of blood and guts. As I caught up with her, I asked, “What’s going on?”
“I’m just curious.”
“Bullshit,” I said. “You’re looking for something.”
Silence greeted my accusation. Rather than continue my line of questioning, I followed after her and waited for her to answer me. Living with two women for so long, I’d learned a trick or two. We were nearly done with our walkthrough, Alexa pausing at each office to poke around with her spear and light before leaving, before she spoke.
“What do you know about Devil Rats?”
“Big, ugly, red?” I said and shrugged. “Also, I’d rather not fight them again? Smell way too bad.”
“Devil Rats are the vermin of the demonic world. They don’t appear naturally… mostly. Instead, the demons that infest the rats often come from badly cast demonic rituals, escaping through badly created wards,” Alexa said. “Three infestations back to back is… uncommon.”
“You’re worried someone’s summoning demons?” I asked, and Alexa nodded.
“Huh.” I rubbed my chin as I poked around further. “So, we’re looking for signs of a demonic ritual?”
“Yes. Or other magical ritual,” Alexa confirmed, and I sighed. Crap. As if things weren’t complicated enough.
***
“Three incidents?” Caleb asked the next morning after I had explained my absence and the quests.
“In about five months,” I said. “I didn’t detect any other rats though. At least, not in my range.” I didn’t need to point out how limited my range with my Link and Scry spells were to Caleb of course.
“And you want me to look into it?” Caleb asked, peering at me imperiously.
“You did mention the Mage Council was formed to deal with extra-dimensional breaches,” I said.
“Yes. For things on a larger scale. The occasional demon summoned by a wizard is…” Caleb frowned and then shrugged. “Well, it’s not something we normally deal with. The local groups normally handle such matters.”
“Seriously!?!” I frowned, and Caleb sighed.
“You seem to be working under a misconception. I have already informed you we’re not policemen or guardians. The council is more akin to a guild. Many of us have better things to do than hunt down your random wizard.”
I glared at Caleb, obviously not happy with his answer. The mage turned away, walking to the whiteboard and tapping on the table.
“Now, we were discussing the sixteen traditional formulas by Kapinsky for the positioning of a spell…”
Chapter 15
As much as I might have worried about the appearance of a demon invasion or two, the next few weeks were uneventful. No more Devil Rats were reported. Even a few late-evening excursions and Scrys had revealed nothing. In the end, it seemed the appearances of the Devil Rats had been coincidental. While uncommon, it was not unusual for the demons that inhabited the Devil Rats to sneak in via cracks in our dimension. They were small enough to do so, and if left unchecked, could eventually wear the barriers away. It was possible that an unexpected shift in the barrier had allowed a bunch of these demons to sneak in. The only thing I could do was keep an eye out for more problems and kill the Rats when they popped-up. Less of them, less damage to the barrier.
During the lull, I even had time to visit a few nice apartments and apply for two. Of course, I then ran into a rather interesting problem—proving my income. I couldn’t exactly put “supernatural troubleshooter” or “mage in training” on the application
forms, and “secondhand reseller” didn’t look much better. In the end, we lost out on both apartments. I couldn’t really say for sure if Alexa’s insistence on informing the landlords that we were “in no way shape or form a couple” helped or not, but I had my suspicions.
Training continued at the plodding pace that Caleb insisted on forcing on me. I couldn’t exactly say the mage was wrong in his training methods as we continued to uncover surprising gaps in what could have been construed as “basic” knowledge. Which was why we were now spending this morning walking the city and receiving a more hands-on education about ley lines and places of power after having spent all of yesterday morning receiving an academic dissertation about them.
“This is a place of power?” I asked, shaking my head as I stared at the side of a building. The mural of a floating space cat with laser beams coming out of its eyes fighting a swarm of green space aliens in superhero costumes was quite creative but not exactly what had come to mind. Wreaths and bouquets of flowers had been laid against the wall along with a single, lonely teddy bear and a scattering of candles.
“Not all places of power are places of worship. Some form due to the deeply felt emotional connection the populace has to a place. The stronger the emotion, the deeper the links.” Caleb bent down and placed his own bouquet next to the group. He waved his hand over the candles, lighting them all with a careless gesture of power before he stood.
“So, not all places of worship, but a mural?” I asked.
“No.” Caleb shifted some flowers to reveal a picture. “A place of mourning and reflection.”
“Ah,” I said. A memory tugged at me—a briefly read article about an upcoming musician, his fan base, and a tragic fight. Too young, too dumb to back down. A punch, a bad fall, and the creation of a new legend.
“Now, do you recall why places of power are important?”
“They enhance the amount of mana you can wield. The stronger the place of power, the more mana there is available to use. That lets someone with even a moderate gift wield more mana. It’s why some of the most powerful places—the pyramids, the Forbidden City, Mount Rushmore—are always warded and guarded. Don’t want a dumb wizard calling up a greater demon,” I answered.
“Good. And that’s why a competent mage studies every place of power in their city. You never know when you might require a power increase.”
“Exactly how many are there? In the city,” I said.
“Twelve grade-three, thirty-six grade-two, and one hundred and twenty eight”—Caleb nodded to the mural—“grade-ones.”
“Nothing over grade three?” I asked, and Caleb smiled thinly.
“Nothing that you need worry about.”
Asshole. Still, as Caleb walked over to the wall, I watched as he began the process of placing wards. We’d practiced it yesterday, but practice and the actual casting were different things. The first ward wasn’t particularly complicated since it was an alarm ward. It involved the initial Ward glyph and a pair of Links. The first linked the ward to the place of power and the second to the board that Caleb kept. Of course, the difficult part was the triggers, ensuring the alarm itself would not trigger randomly or due to minor fluctuations in mana flow. While in theory it was simple, in practice, you had to understand not only the power level of that particular point of power but also its normal power fluctuations and the environment surrounding it. It required significant fine-tuning, which made it perfect as a training tool for me.
The second, more powerful and complicated, ward that Caleb cast once he was done with the first was one I had no ability to lay. It basically sealed the place of power, ensuring no one could use it. It was significantly more powerful and complicated. The first ward had taken Caleb a bare five minutes to lay. The second, nearly an hour. The wards glowed for a moment more, visible to everyone before they faded away from mundane sight. Unlike the wards I normally carved out, these were runic wards that were written in glowing mana script. It required somewhat more strength to invert the wards and hide them from mundane sight, but it certainly made things easier.
“Did you see?” Caleb asked finally when he turned to me, weariness etched on his face.
“The first, sure. The second…” I trailed off, shaking my head.
“Obviously,” Caleb snorted. “Come, we will have you practice on the next section. And after that, you will take it as a quest of yours. Yes?”
“Yes,” I agreed. It was something we had discussed already—a simple quest, one that could be approved by Lily and paid for by the Mage Council. It worked for all of us; I got paid and trained up a spell, and the Mage Council got the places of power that they couldn’t be bothered to waste one of their own people on warded. All in all, it worked out quite well. I wasn’t entirely certain why they cared to ward places like this since they weren’t going to do more than keep watch, but that, when I asked, was none of my business. In fact, I knew Caleb normally wouldn’t have sealed this place of power except for the fact that he was here.
As we walked toward the car to head to the next location, I glanced over at Caleb, curiosity warring with my usual social awkwardness. In the end, curiosity won. “Why are you doing this?”
“Hmmm? I’m sure we discussed this.”
“Not the warding. The teaching,” I clarified.
“Ah.” Caleb paused, considering. “It is not as if your wish gave us much choice.”
“But why you?” I asked.
“My initial task had not been completed. Until the ring has been returned to the council, I will not receive another,” Caleb said.
“Doesn’t explain the teaching,” I said.
“Teaching you and raising your ‘level’ is the most optimal route. Once we are no longer constrained by your death, I will acquire that ring,” Caleb said simply.
“Acquire. As in kill me,” I said, looking at the mage’s impassive face. He nodded slightly, seemingly unconcerned with that. “And you’re okay with this.”
“Many of us have made questionable decisions to gain the power we have,” Caleb said after a long silence, his voice calm as he continued to speak. “That yours has constrained your enemies to act at a later date is almost admirable.”
“Huh.” I leaned back, shaking my head. I guess I somehow had a different idea of what a teacher-student relationship should be. Could be. But then again, my upbringing, my culture, set a higher importance on that relationship, almost valuing it at the same level as a familial relationship at times. To Caleb though, this was just a way of getting me up to speed so he could complete his task faster.
And of course, if he taught me, he’d know all my tricks, which would make dealing with me easier. After all, it was hard to surprise someone who’d taught you. I shivered when I realized that fact. Still, at least it explained the remoteness I always sensed when dealing with Caleb.
***
“You bring a girl to the nicest places,” Alexa said as she kicked an empty beer can down the concrete path. I looked up from the ward I was currently placing, considering the desolate skate park filled with empty beer cans, discarded hypodermic needles, and other waste and had to mentally agree with her. This was a shithole and not the worst one we’d seen. After all, locations which were currently occupied were often already warded—by local supernatural organizations or the city. Admittedly, the wards that a mosque or church might use would be different than mine, but they would be no less effective. In fact, most would be significantly more complex. It was thus no surprise that my quest mostly involved dealing with these places—locations that had been abandoned.
“You didn’t have to come,” I said.
“I definitely did.” Alexa continued to walk a circle around me. “My job is literally to babysit you.”
“Didn’t ask you to,” I grumped. Even as I was speaking, my fingers danced as they pulled and stretched at the fabric of reality, and a portion of my mind worked the Ward spell. The days of practice I had received ha
d given me quite a bit of confidence at casting this spell.
“No. I was ordered to.” Alexa shook her head. “Child of fate and all that.”
“Child of fate?” I frowned, looking at Alexa. “Keep saying that, and I’ll get a big head.”
“Not you, idiot,” Alexa said with a roll of her eyes. “Me. Though how I got tied to you for the next little while, I have no idea.”
I worked in silence for a bit since the next part was actually tricky. I didn’t have a shortcut for the next part provided to me by Lily, so I actually had to manually cast the spell. While it wasn’t extremely different from the Link spell—and in fact, I considered it inferior in many ways—it did have much greater range. By the time I was done, another twenty minutes had finished, and I had begun to perspire. As I stood and wiped away the sweat, I considered the initiate while I rested for a bit. The next part would be even more difficult.
“Care to explain?”
“About the child of fate? It’s a term the Church uses to signify people whose presence or lack of it will alter the course of the future,” Alexa said. “Telling the future is complicated. Mostly, seers can only see the major events in a person’s life—the ones that have the greatest impact on others and places where numerous individuals are affected by an event. A child of fate is someone whose presence occurs numerous times in their visions and whose presence then affects those futures.”
“Huh. So, you’re not necessarily the agent but a catalyst? Or potentially both?”
“Yes. In fact, I’m not even supposed to know about it. It was only chance that I overheard the abbess arguing with the knights about it when I was a teenager. My choice to become a healer was not taken well.”