Scholar of Magic

by Michael G. Manning

  “Maybe the Shimerans then?” suggested the officer. “Demons and vampires are about the same thing, aren’t they?”

  Clearly, he wasn’t one of Wurthaven’s brightest graduates, thought Will, then he shook his head. “No, they’re entirely different.”

  “Well, anyway, whoever it is that started all this, it seems to me they want to demoralize the people. That’s why they’ve gone after popular figures, well, except for Lord Tintabel. He wasn’t known for much aside from his paintings, but the priest and Lady Nerrow were obvious targets.”

  That caught his attention. “Lady Nerrow? Is the baroness popular?”

  “Not the baroness, sir, her daughter Laina. She’s probably the most popular person in all of Cerria right now. If something happened to her, I don’t know what people would do.”

  That was news to him. “I don’t understand.”

  “Have you been living under a rock, sir? Lady Nerrow championed the Mother’s Widows and Orphans charity after the Prophet attacked, and she was only a girl then. She’s just barely reached her majority but she’s already famous. She’s out at every event in the city, shaming the rich into paying up to provide for the poor and disadvantaged. If it weren’t for her, a lot of people would have starved, and I don’t just mean those in the city. Hell, she was in Branscombe not long after the Darrowans attacked, bringing supplies and aid for the citizens of Barrowden and Branscombe.”

  Will was flabbergasted, but there was no mistaking the tone of reverence in Dan Ramfeld’s voice. The man truly believed that Laina Nerrow was some sort of merciful lady sent to rescue the people from misery and squalor. Will remembered Laina’s visit to Branscombe, and as far as he knew her part of the trip had merely been as company for her father. How could he have been so completely unaware?

  I was a little focused on not dying in the war, thought Will. Still, he hadn’t seen anything but a spoiled nobleman’s brat. Was it really possible that his half-sister was more than that? It was hard for him to credit, but it did explain why Laina had been a target for the vampires. She was sixteen when the Prophet’s army invaded Barrowden. How could she possibly have become a public figure and a driving force behind a widow’s charity?

  Then again, maybe she had been Selene’s best friend for more reasons than the fact that they grew up together. Maybe his wife had known a different Laina than the spoiled asshole that Will had always interacted with. As far as he knew, Selene had always been big on helping people—was that trait what had connected the two women?

  “Well fuck me sideways,” muttered Will. “It turns out I’m the judgmental asshole.”

  “Beg your pardon, sir?” asked the lieutenant.

  It was pure chance that Will happened to look over at the man at just that moment. Otherwise things might have gone very differently. They were walking along a dark portion of road, with barely enough light to see where to put their feet. Naturally, that wasn’t a problem for Will, but the lighting made it impossible for the men to see what was racing toward them from a side alley.

  The vampire was mere feet from where the sorcerer stood to Will’s right, and it was moving at full speed, rushing toward the man like an evil wind. Will didn’t even have time to blink. His point-defense shield stopped the fiend in its tracks with the crack of bones breaking. His shield vanished, and a force-lance removed the creature’s head.

  The thing wasn’t alone, however. Two of the watch patrollers went down at the same time, as they were hit from different sides. The vampires weren’t trying to feed, though; they knocked the men from their feet and turned to do the same to the others, clearly intending to disable their entire group before killing them.

  Ethelgren’s Illumination put an end to that plan as searing white spheres spiraled out from Will’s upraised hand. Screams and hisses echoed through the dark as the monsters closest to them burned and died. Will’s eyes were closed, so he couldn’t be sure, but it sounded as though some of those farther away escaped complete annihilation, for their howls and footsteps moved away even as the spell moved farther out. As the light dimmed, he opened his eyes and went to help the men who had been knocked down.

  “Were either of you hurt?” he asked, trying to see without bending down. His leg would make crouching and standing again nearly impossible.

  One of the two patrollers had suffered nothing more than a bruise, but the other had a shallow cut along his arm. Before Will could offer, the man pulled out a glass vial and swallowed the contents. The shape of the vial was familiar to him. Did the king buy blood-cleanse potions from Wurthaven? If so, Will had probably been the one who made them.

  Will began replacing the illumination spell immediately, having learned his lesson at the warehouse the night before. The patrollers and the sorcerer gathered around him. “You were damn quick with that spell,” said the lieutenant gratefully. “He might have ripped my head off before I even saw him coming.”

  “I just stopped him for a second,” said Will modestly. “It was your force-lance that took his head off.”

  “Force-lance? I haven’t heard of that spell before,” said the officer.

  Will stared at him for a moment, reviewing the fight in his mind. Did I cast the force-lance? He hadn’t had one ready. If he had done it, it meant he had finally reflex cast the spell for the first time. Looking down the alley, he picked a target and tried to will a force-lance into being. Nothing happened. He held out his hand and constructed the spell in the normal way. He’d been practicing the spell regularly for over a year, so it came together in just under a second. It felt faster than it had been a few days before, but it wasn’t instant.

  He couldn’t be sure. It had been just as confusing when he had started reflex casting the point-defense shield. First it had been unconscious and then later it started responding to more deliberate attempts as well. Either way, it was a good sign.

  “Sir?”

  He shook his head. “It’s a combat spell. I’m sure they’ll teach it to you when you start your battle training.”

  “I wish I knew it right now,” said the sorcerer enviously. “Or that light spell you used, that would be even better.”

  You should learn the point-defense spell first, thought Will, hearing his grandfather’s voice in the back of his mind. The memory made him smile. The ring had been right. The point-defense shield had saved his life a dozen times over by then. Even so, he didn’t feel right putting the man off. Not when any bit of knowledge might be the bit that saved his life.

  When they reached the gates of Wurthaven, Will asked the lieutenant to wait for him. Then he went to the guardhouse. The guard recognized him and greeted him with a quick nod, which Will returned. Then he summoned a journal and a charcoal stylus he used for sketching. The spell was simple, and ink would take too long. He quickly wrote out the diagram for the force-lance, then ripped the page out of the journal. Dismissing the book, he hobbled back over to the patrollers. “Here,” he said, holding out the page. “The spell I used. I’d teach you the light spell too, but it’s too complicated for the time we have.”

  “Thank you, sir!” said the officer, sincere gratitude in his eyes. “Are you sure you don’t want to come with us? Even with that bad leg of yours, I think we might feel safer if you did.”

  Will smiled. “I wish I could, but I have too many other things to attend to.” He left them there, heading directly for the Alchemy building. The campus had always felt like safe ground to him—usually it was the city outside the walls that threatened him—but he couldn’t relax as he worked his way down dark lanes and across well-trimmed lawns.

  He knew quite well that the walls were no obstacle to vampires, and the campus was nearly deserted at night. Will swiveled his head constantly, trying to watch every direction as he painfully made his way to his destination.

  Chapter 33

  Unlike the buildings that only held lectures, the Alchemy building, much like the Healing and Psyche building, always had a few people manning the front entrance
. There were quite a few staff as well as some students who used the facilities late into the night, especially since the hours didn’t conflict with their daytime classes.

  That wasn’t to say that the building was always busy at night. On the weekends it was nearly deserted, and on most nights the place was almost empty after midnight. It was still just the beginning of the night, and it wasn’t a weekend, so there were several people at the front desk, and Will saw a number of lights from the windows on various floors.

  His crutches drew a few looks as he signed in and made his way to the stairs, but he was a well-known face in the building. The only remark he received was a quick, “What happened to you?”

  The one who asked was named Lawrence, a young man and a senior student who was aiming for a career in alchemy. Will glanced at his clothes and realized that although he was clean, his trousers were a shamble. His mother had cut one leg completely away when she worked on his thigh. “It’s a long story,” Will replied.

  “It always is with you,” said Lawrence with a chuckle. “Things have been crazy since yesterday. I suppose you heard about the fires?”

  “Yeah.” He wouldn’t have minded hearing more, but he was also in a hurry to get started. He dodged the rest of the conversation. “I need to get moving. Sorry.” Will breathed a sigh of relief when he finally made it to the private workroom he rented from Professor Karlovic. No one ever bothered him there, aside from the professor occasionally coming by to see what he was up to.

  Wasting no time, he began setting up his largest vessel to boil the raw troll urine. It could hold several gallons of fluid, which was much more than most students needed for their projects. Will had bought it the previous year when he had been desperately trying to earn enough to keep from being put in prison.

  Everything seemed harder than usual. His shoulders and arms ached, his hips hurt, and his leg was a constant misery of throbbing pain punctuated by sharp moments of agony whenever he accidentally bumped it or tried to use the muscles in his thigh. When he finally sat down and began doing the calculations to plan out the reaction ingredient masses, it seemed like a relief, but he discovered it was hard to focus.

  There were several lamps in the room providing more than enough light, especially since he could adjust his vision, but the numbers and symbols on the page in front of him blurred in and out despite all of his squinting. Will put his pen aside for a moment and rubbed his face with his hands. Then he tried again.

  The math wasn’t that complex, but he had a nagging suspicion something was wrong when he got to the end, so he repeated the calculation, starting at the beginning.

  His answer the second time was different. Growling angrily, he tried again. Ten minutes later, he had a third and still different result. Will fought the urge to throw the journal across the room. He could hardly recall the last time he had felt so frustrated.

  Taking a deep breath, he started again. This time his result was the same as his second attempt, but he still didn’t trust it. He had to be sure; otherwise he could ruin a lot of expensive materials. His fifth attempt confirmed his first calculation.

  Will wanted to cry. He knew it was him. He hadn’t slept in almost two days, aside from his short, alcohol-induced coma, and during that time he had been in multiple fights. Add to that his wounded leg and he was obviously not in a fit state to do rational calculations.

  A knock at the door startled him from drowsing. He hadn’t even realized his head had drooped and his eyes were half-closed. Will straightened up, grabbed his crutches, and hobbled over to the door. He had locked it so no one could interrupt him, though there was only one person likely to appear.

  He opened it to find Professor Karlovic standing in the hall. “I thought I’d drop in and see what you were up to. You haven’t been in for a couple of days.” The professor gave him a curious look, studying him up and down as Will let him into the laboratory. “You look the worse for wear.”

  “Don’t get me started,” said Will sourly, running a hand through his hair. “I can’t even do figures right now.”

  “This kind of work isn’t safe when you aren’t at your best, William. I’m sure you know that,” cautioned the professor. “What happened to your leg?”

  I got drunk and woke up pregnant with a troll-let, Will wanted to say, but he stopped himself, fighting back a semi-hysterical chuckle. “I had an accident while collecting troll urine.”

  Karlovic’s eyes lit up with interest. “You managed to get more? How?”

  Will sighed. “You know I don’t share those secrets, Professor.”

  “So, you’re trying to make more regeneration potions. Why are you risking such valuable materials by working when you’re clearly exhausted—not to mention injured?”

  “Because it’s necessary. You know about the trouble in the city last night, right?”

  The professor nodded. “More than I’m supposed to talk about with the students. We’re considering a curfew on the campus starting tomorrow.”

  “I was in the middle of part of what happened last night,” said Will. “Janice Edelman and another friend of mine are in Doctor Morris’ care because they came to save me. If I don’t find a way to fix what happened to them, the consequences will be permanent.”

  Karlovic looked uncertain. “I heard about poor Janice. You were really involved? You know about what’s happening in the city?”

  “You’re not supposed to say ‘vampire’ in front of the students, I guess?” asked Will. “I saw a lot of them, too many for comfort.” Reaching down, he pulled back one of his sleeves, letting the teacher see the now scabbed-over puncture wounds that ran up and down his skin. “I wouldn’t have lived if Janice hadn’t done what she did.”

  “They’re real?” asked the professor. “They briefed us, but it was hard to believe. Supposedly the king has soldiers and the Driven patrolling the streets.”

  “They’re real,” Will confirmed, staring down at his page of mangled calculations.

  Professor Karlovic came over and nudged him aside. “Let me do this. You’re in no state. It’s better to have someone else do the checks anyway.”

  Will stared at his bearded professor, then moved over and sat down. He blinked several times as his vision became blurry. The stress of the past two days had been too much. Breathing slowly, letting his throat relax, he finally replied, “Thank you, Professor. You don’t know how much it means.”

  “Think nothing of it. You’ve done plenty of checks for me.”

  “Back when you were paying me,” said Will wryly.

  His teacher didn’t answer until he had finished the calculation he was doing. “I have a feeling you’re doing more for me and everyone else right now than anyone knows, so this is probably just a proper repayment. Even if it isn’t, it’s a teacher’s job to help students when they need it.” He moved on, then started a second time, rechecking the work he had done. Karlovic was done a few minutes later as both of his sets of calculations agreed with each other. They also matched Will’s original second run through. The professor underlined the final amounts, then rewrote them on a second sheet of paper so they wouldn’t get confused with the rest of the numbers that covered the original worksheet.

  He handed the sheet to Will. “Here’s your final working amounts. Where are you at in the process?”

  “Just doing the first boil,” said Will. “But I need to measure all this out so I’m ready for the next stage.”

  “Not going to sleep?”

  He shook his head.

  “You’re already about to fall over. You’re bound to ruin it if you don’t rest first,” the professor pointed out.

  Will shrugged.

  Karlovic pointed at the stool. “Stay there and don’t do anything. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

  He had no idea what the professor intended, but Will did as he was told. By the time the teacher returned, a quarter of an hour later, he was nodding off on his seat, repeatedly waking up when his head slipped and jer
ked him awake. Karlovic opened the door and dragged in a wooden folding cot. He had a pillow under one arm.

  “I told you I can’t sleep, sir,” argued Will. “I have to get this done.”

  His teacher ignored him, setting up the cot on one side of the room. “You lie there,” he ordered. “I’ll play assistant tonight.”

  “Huh?”

  “I’ll measure it all out and get the second stage going.”

  “But you can’t…”

  The professor walked/dragged Will over to the cot, then forced him to sit, which sent a surge of pain through Will’s leg. “I can,” said Karlovic. “I won’t try to do the activations. I don’t intend to shorten my life, but I’ll do everything else. Get some sleep. I’ll wake you up for the part that sane wizards avoid like the plague.”

  Will stared up at the man, barely able to think. Finally, he answered, “All right.” Then he flopped onto his side and closed his eyes. He was asleep within seconds.

  Almost immediately, someone shook his shoulder. Will blinked, staring fuzzily at his antagonist. It was the professor again. “You told me to sleep,” he complained.

  The other man smiled. “That was four hours ago. You need to activate the ingredients for the second stage.”

  “Oh.” Will sat up, feeling muzzy and almost drunk, then he tried to stand and nearly fell. His right thigh was swollen and sore to the point that he was completely unable to move it. It took him a prolonged period of maneuvering with Karlovic’s assistance to get back to a standing position while keeping his right leg straight.

  Finally, at the workbench, Will began drawing in turyn and tuning it to the specific types that the ingredients would need to be infused with. Externally, there was nothing to see, but he could feel Professor Karlovic watching him intently. “Are you hoping to discover my secret?” asked Will.

  “Well, it’s clear that you haven’t suffered from all the potions you made last year, so I would dearly love to know how you do it without killing yourself,” said the older man honestly.