Scholar of Magic

by Michael G. Manning

  Will hadn’t needed the unlocking spell in over a year, but he still practiced it during his daily spell routine, and it came together quickly over his palm. Seconds later, the padlock clicked open. He stored it in the limnthal too. Such things, even the cheaper ones, were quite valuable. If he could get a key made for it, it would be worth considerable coin. First the painting and now this. I’m turning into a common thief. Then again, he had come to steal something anyway, and one way or another he figured the owner owed him for what had happened to his friends.

  Opening the vault, he noted that a ward had been laid over the space just behind the door. It was an unusual arrangement, as ordinarily a ward would be placed on the door itself, rather than the air behind it. He hadn’t learned to create any wards yet himself, but he knew that they lasted longer when placed on solid materials.

  Behind the ward was a large space containing a multitude of glass jars and vials, along with a large leather sack. Will smiled, then took a moment to attune himself to the ward, before reaching through and removing the contents, one by one. The larger glass jars were tightly sealed with wax, cloth, and twine. The glass was brown, and the jars sloshed as he pulled them out, confirming his suspicion of their contents. Turning the first one around, he saw the chemical symbol for phosphorous had been painted on one side.

  The phosphorous itself would be a waxy solid, but it was stored in water to prevent exposure to air, which could cause it to spontaneously ignite. All in all, he removed ten of the large jars—a small fortune if they contained as much white phosphorous as had been bought from the Alchemy Department.

  The smaller vials made him even happier, for they were the result of someone else’s hard work. Each one was clearly labeled, ‘alchemist’s fire.’ There were twenty of those.

  Last but not least, he extracted the leather sack. It jingled and clinked as he set it on the wood floor beside him. Will untied the bag and looked inside, where he saw the unmistakable glitter of gold crowns. Over the past year he’d had to handle large sums on several occasions, and he had begun to get a feel for such quantities. At a guess, there was somewhere between a hundred to a hundred and fifty gold marks.

  He hadn’t come for the gold, but he wasn’t leaving it behind either. Will stored it in the limnthal along with the jars of phosphorous and the vials of alchemist’s fire. He had almost everything he needed now. Getting to his feet, he started to leave when he heard a noise through the wall. Someone was moving close by, just outside the building.

  There were several possibilities, chief among them being more vampires or the king’s Driven. Either way, he didn’t want to give away his theft if they checked the building before he could leave. He closed the iron door, replaced the rug, then returned the desk to its original position. With that accomplished, he rechecked his prepared spells.

  He still wasn’t sure who was outside, and while the odds were highest that it would be the king’s Driven at that point, he was more afraid of vampires. Still, he needed to escape. If he walked out and the king’s men tried to detain him, he would need a plan. An idea came to him after a moment’s thought.

  Discarding the prepared wind-wall spell, he replaced it with a chameleon spell, but he didn’t cast it. He now had two illumination spells and the chameleon spell ready. He was tempted to emerge with a force-lance in hand as well, but if it actually was the Driven, they would probably see that as an obvious sign of hostility. Most of the vampires might not be able to see turyn, but the Driven were all sorcerers.

  He walked out the main door without a single spell active, though his vision was optimized for the lighting. Will could clearly see the teams of sorcerers spread out around the building. They were clustered in groups of four with about ten to twenty yards between each group, and they appeared to encircle the entire warehouse.

  Given the dim lighting, they probably assumed he couldn’t see them, and he was just grateful that they weren’t hiding in the ground again. Will walked directly toward the closest group. At twenty feet, they ordered him to stop and he did his best to act surprised. “Who’s there?”

  “Servants of the king. Identify yourself.”

  Will was nonplussed. “You don’t recognize me, yet you claim to work for my father-in-law?”

  The leader of the group closest to Will moved nearer, stepping into a better-lit area. “You were reported as being at Wurthaven receiving medical care.”

  He shrugged. “And yet I’m here. I came back to make sure there were none left. The place was crawling with them earlier.”

  “Please lie down on the ground, sir. We will have to take you into custody until we can verify your identity.” The man pointed at the cobblestones to underscore his command.

  Will held his hands out to the side in a friendly gesture as he continued to move forward. “Can’t we be more civilized about this? I’ll come quietly. I really don’t think my wife would be happy to hear that you forced me to lie in the street.”

  The sorcerer backed up slightly, and his companions moved to encircle Will, who made a show of pretending to turn around and offer his hands behind his back. “You could cuff me just as easily like this,” he told them.

  “Get down n—”

  Their leader was shouting as Will released his first prepared spell, Ethelgren’s Illumination. The brilliant light blinded the men’s night-adjusted vision as he rushed forward and pushed one of the men aside, but he didn’t run past. Instead he crouched down and cast the chameleon spell on himself.

  “Fuck!”

  “Damn it!”

  “I can’t see a thing. He just ran past me!”

  Will grinned to himself as they swore and tried to organize themselves. Two of the teams farther out on either side were sent to chase him down, while the others continued to close in on the building. The ones immediately around him moved away a moment later.

  He remained still until the teams were fully engaged with securing the warehouse, and their attention was firmly on what was within their circle, rather than what was without. The two teams sent to find him returned empty-handed and once they were accounted for, Will felt secure in slowly creeping away.

  The king is going to be very displeased when he finds out I made fools out of them, thought Will. He felt a little bad about that, but he couldn’t afford to get tied down answering questions. His friends didn’t have the luxury of time.

  He debated his next move, as it could technically be accomplished at either end of the journey, but in the end it made more sense to take care of it in Cerria. Plus, since he was already in the dockside district, it would be easy to find what he needed. He stopped at the first pub he found and circled around to the back alley.

  Dawn was fast approaching, and so the drinking houses were all closed, but Will worried he might run into an early morning employee coming to begin the day. It was the work of a few minutes to use another spell to open the back door and let himself in. From there, he searched until he found the entrance to the cellar, where what he needed was sure to lie.

  In the cool dark there were racks that held numerous casks and barrels. It didn’t take him long to find the ale, which was held in four massive butts, the largest barrel size in the room. Once again, he felt a sense of guilt, since he intended to take two full butts, leaving the pub with only one full and one partial butt to supply their customers.

  It had been over a year since he had bought wine in large amounts, and this was a different beverage, plus at that time, he had only bought quarter casks. This was roughly four times as much volume, so he did a little mental math, quadrupling what he had paid before, then doubling it again. He still wasn’t sure if it was enough to compensate the owner for the trouble of losing his stock, so he added a little more and left an even pile of thirty gold marks on the floor in front of where the butts stood. Then he stored them in the limnthal.

  I’ve been nothing but a thief tonight, he realized, but he wasn’t about to second-guess his choices. Exiting the cellar, he left t
he pub and stopped for a moment to make sure he relocked the door properly. It wouldn’t do for someone else to come along and rob the place after he had left. He liked to think he was considerate.

  Will resumed his purposeful walk, and soon he was outside Cerria again, heading south toward the congruence point. The sun was rising on his left, turning the pastures and fields into shifting shades of green and gold. Spring was already beginning to leave its mark on the world.

  Alone and away from people, he activated the limnthal and sought advice. “I need to get back to your old house quickly.”

  “Did you already return Tailtiu to her mother?”

  “Yes.”

  “That’s a shame. You could have used her to bargain for a guide. You didn’t have any actual debt to repay. The only reason you had to rescue Tailtiu was because of her implied threat,” said the ring.

  “Well, it’s a little late for that now.” And I rescued her for my own reasons, not to bargain with her life, he added mentally.

  “Yep. You’re screwed.”

  “How does Aislinn do that vanishing thing? Twice now I’ve seen her appear and disappear. Is she becoming invisible or is she traveling somehow?” asked Will.

  “It’s a form of travel,” said Arrogan. “Not one you’ll be using any time soon, and never in Faerie.”

  “So there’s a spell that can move you from one place to another?”

  “It’s called teleportation, and generally it can only be done over short distances, either to a place you can see, or a very familiar place that isn’t too far away.”

  “How far is too far away?”

  “A few miles at best,” said the ring. “There used to be ways to teleport from city to city, but that required a beacon and there aren’t any left.”

  Will was enthralled by the subject. “What happened to them?”

  “Someone destroyed them.”

  The brevity of the answer raised his suspicions. “It was you, wasn’t it?”

  “I’d rather not talk about it,” said Arrogan. “Don’t you have something more pressing to worry about?”

  “Why didn’t anyone rebuild the beacons?”

  “The secret of their construction was closely guarded by the Wayfarer’s Society, which was sort of a specialized wizard’s guild. The last of their masters died during the Terabinian War for Independence.”

  “Because you killed him?”

  “Listen, I didn’t kill everyone who died during that war. It’s rude to assume. I know I made it sound like I did a lot of terrible things, but I wasn’t the only one involved.”

  “But you killed the guild master of the Wayfarer’s Society, didn’t you?” asked Will insistently.

  Arrogan growled. “Yes, damn it. Are you happy now?”

  “Maybe a little,” admitted Will. “It’s been a bad day, so it doesn’t take much to improve my mood. So, you say I can’t teleport. Can you guide me through Faerie? Tailtiu took me on a journey using multiple congruence points back and forth to get back to Barrowden in just a few hours once.”

  “She’s a part of Faerie, so she instinctively knows where all the congruence points are,” explained the ring. “Not only that, but she visits our realm now and then and already knew the two places in our world that you wanted to travel between. Both of those things are necessary to figure out a route like that. Regular humans like you and me—well, like you—have to make do with the few routes we know personally.”

  “So, you’re no help at all.”

  “You already know my old shortcut between Barrowden and Branscombe. That will shave three days off your journey.”

  He needed to get there and back much more quickly than that. Will released the limnthal and continued walking in silence. Not too long ago he’d had a surfeit of allies and resources; now he had none. As he finally reached the congruence point, he saw something move in the tall grass.

  Will paused, suddenly cautious, until a familiar gray form stepped into view.

  Chapter 27

  Gold eyes stared at him without blinking. “What the hell do you want?” Will demanded.

  “As you have been useful to me in the past, I thought I would offer you a boon,” said the goddamn cat, completely without shame.

  “You left me to die last night. I needed your help then, but you abandoned me! They were eating me!”

  The cat blinked once, slowly. “And yet you are standing here. It appears that despite your histrionics you didn’t need my help after all.”

  Will growled. “It’s about more than me. I lost one friend and I may still lose another. Janice has lost an eye and half her face. Do you think I care about nothing but myself? They matter to me!”

  One of the cat’s ears twitched, but he still seemed unfazed. “Should they matter to me? Have any of them done me a great service? You helped me remove an old enemy, but did they? Am I supposed to care about all of humankind now? You go too far in your assumptions. You were aiding one of my sworn enemies; did you expect my assistance?”

  Will glared at the cat for half a minute. He wanted to fault the demigod’s logic, but he couldn’t. Nor could he dismiss the fact that the cat had shown up at the very moment he had been about to give in to despair. Was it a coincidence? Given the creature’s feelings about the fae, he didn’t expect an honest answer. Will took a deep breath, held it, then let it out slowly. “Did you say you were offering a boon? How much will it cost me?”

  The goddamned cat wrinkled his nose in disgust. “You should know me better by now. I don’t deal in favors and bargains. I help those I choose, when I choose. Last night I was disinclined, but today I am otherwise disposed to offer you assistance.”

  He thought about it a moment, then replied, “Sorry. My words were careless. What do you propose?”

  “I can get you to the place you desire, and back, assuming you survive,” said the Cath Bawlg.

  “You’ll guide me through Faerie?”

  “I could, but I would rather not waste so much time. I have another path in mind, though you’ll need to protect yourself.”

  Will nodded. “What do I do?”

  “The demon-armor spell you used in the past should work nicely, though it will become tiring. This path is not for the faint of heart.”

  He frowned. “How fast is this route?”

  “Less than an hour, but you’ll be sorely tested. Make certain your reserves are full before we begin,” answered the goddamn cat.

  Will expanded his outer shell and began absorbing turyn as quickly as he could, until he felt comfortably full but not strained. When he glanced back at the cat, he nearly fell over backward. The formerly small gray tabby had grown to the size of a destrier. With the cat standing on all four legs, Will could barely see over his shoulders. If someone’s dog saw him right now it would have nightmares for life, he observed as he stepped back and tried to hide his startlement. “You could have warned me.”

  The goddamn cat’s voice was a deep rumble as he replied, “If I intended to put an end to you my size wouldn’t matter.”

  Size doesn’t matter when it comes to giant… Will began to snicker, unable to help himself.

  “Is something funny?”

  Will waved his hands in front of his face. “Nothing, just something I’ll have to tell Selene one of these days.”

  The cat ignored his lack of a proper answer. “Climb on my back.”

  He tried, and although the Cath Bawlg was kind enough to lie down to make things easier, he found it to be about as easy as climbing a mountain of pudding. The giant feline’s skin hardly seemed attached to his body, and while his fur was thick it was also slick, providing little purchase. Will eventually got to the demigod’s shoulders, but when he tried to get his leg over, he wound up sliding down the other side. “This isn’t working,” he admitted at last. “I think we need a saddle or something similar.”

  The goddamn cat showed his teeth in displeasure, a frightening display of ivory sabers set in a disturbingly large mouth.
“You obviously missed the operative word, ‘climb.’ You have a spell for that, don’t you?”

  “Will that work on a person—or cat?”

  “Find out. You’re the wizard.”

  He tried and failed, then he took a moment to study the spell construct as he tried again. Arrogan had walked him through the basics of crafting new spells the previous year and it wasn’t something to be done casually, but this seemed like it might be a small change. After a minute he identified the runes that designated the target as an inanimate solid. Switching it around, he altered it to what he thought should target animate solids instead.

  When he invested turyn into the spell this time, he did so very slowly. He’d learned the risk of overloading an untested spell once before and he didn’t want to repeat the experience. The spell took effect and seemed to be functioning normally so he tried climbing the goddamn cat once more.

  The skin still slid back and forth, but he remained firmly attached, like a stubborn tick. He worked his way up to the shoulders and managed to get himself astride the massive feline with no trouble. Both legs were firmly affixed on either side of the Cath Bawlg, and since the spell forced the user to keep three limbs attached, he had to keep one hand on the cat at all times as well. Maybe I should work on a version that only requires two for situations like this, he thought. It would be handy to have both hands free.

  “Ready?”

  “Sure—areaghhhhh!” Will’s assent transformed into a terrified scream as the cat leapt forward. The beast moved with incredible speed, and unlike a horse, whose back was relatively stable, the cat’s spine, shoulders, and hips all seemed to move in different directions at the same time. He was suddenly grateful that he couldn’t come loose and started to wish his free hand was similarly stuck.

  They raced across the field and into a small copse of trees, but the world shifted as they entered the shadows, transforming into something entirely unfamiliar. The turyn was different, and Will could tell they were no longer in the world he was familiar with. “Where are we?”