Scholar of Magic

by Michael G. Manning

  She frowned. “I heard about the fires, and people have been talking about disappearances and monsters. Most of it is just hysteria, isn’t it?”

  “Rob went missing two nights ago,” Will said honestly. “I don’t know how much you’ll believe, but things are much worse than you imagine.”

  “But I got his letter this morning. He left it at the girls’ dorm for me. It was dated yesterday. There’s one for you too; that’s why I wondered if you knew something.” She held up a small sealed envelope.

  His heart sank. If Rob hadn’t died that night, then he had survived to become one of the enemy. He couldn’t lie to Veronica, though. “There are vampires, Veronica. They took him two nights ago. If he’s still writing to you, then they’ve turned him. If you see him, you need to run the other direction.”

  She rolled her eyes, seeming irritated. “Listen, I don’t know what sort of weird prank you two are trying to pull, but I don’t appreciate it. I was genuinely worried about him.”

  “But—”

  Veronica cut him off. “If you see him, tell him not to bother wasting my time. I’m not fond of games.” She marched away.

  “That went well,” observed Tiny.

  “What else could I have done?” asked Will.

  “Next time maybe paralyze her and push her up against a building? That worked well with the baron,” said Tiny sarcastically.

  Will glared at his friend. “Seriously, you have developed a nasty sense of humor.”

  Tiny shrugged. “It must be the company I keep.”

  He shook his head, then opened the envelope that Veronica had given him. The contents did nothing to ease his mind.

  Will,

  My school days have come to an end, but rest assured, I am alive and unwell. I despaired at first. The change is painful, but I bear you no ill will. This is my last message to you as a friend, however. If we meet again, well, it’s best that we don’t.

  I tried, though. I tried hard. Maybe everyone does. The mind remains, but no amount of reason survives when the thirst strikes. I have already done things that would have horrified me just days ago, yet my sense of guilt is strangely dull.

  This is my last gift to you. Get out of the city. Those who control the night have let slip the reins; not all is moving according to their plan. Apparently, the thing you went to save that night was the catalyst for a disaster that no one wanted.

  But my new masters are adaptable. They will use the chaos as they adjust their plans. Friday night will be the end for Cerria, and for its king. I both fear and delight in the thought of what will come after.

  Farewell my friend. Run far, run fast!

  Robert

  “Fuck!” swore Will. Then he looked at Tiny. “I need to talk to someone.”

  “Who?”

  He held up his hand, showing the Ring of Vile and Unspeakable Knowledge to Tiny. “I’ve kept this a secret to most, but the mind of my old teacher is trapped here.”

  Tiny stared at the ring. “When did you get that? I don’t think I’ve ever seen you wearing a ring.”

  “Most people don’t notice it. It’s part of the magic,” Will informed him. “Anyway, don’t be surprised when you hear it talking.” He activated the limnthal, then addressed the ring. “I’m back at the college now, but it seems like the vampires are probably multiplying.”

  “How’s the baby?” asked Arrogan with a snicker, ignoring what Will had just said. Tiny’s brows went up in surprise.

  Will growled. “It’s fine. I named it Gan, in your honor.”

  “You kept it? Those things are dangerous!”

  “I returned it to the trolls. They even gave me a name, Grak-Murra.”

  “Troll what? That last part is nonsense.”

  “It’s new. Clegg decided it’s their new word for mother.”

  Arrogan began chortling. “So you’re the ‘troll-mother.’ Oh, that’s rich! In the history of wizard ambassadors, you’re the first to deliver the baby and take it back to them.”

  “The same thing happened to you then?”

  “Why don’t we focus on this vampire problem you have?” suggested Arrogan, suddenly serious. “That’s obviously the most important thing.”

  Of course it is, thought Will wryly. He took a few minutes to explain the situation and give the ring an update on current events, including the content of Rob’s letter.

  Arrogan sighed. “That isn’t good. You say people have been disappearing?”

  “That’s the rumor, but it makes sense.”

  “The building searches probably won’t find much,” said the ring.

  Will frowned. “Why not?”

  “Oh, they might find a few random nests—some of the wild ones that got loose after what happened with Tailtiu—but from what your friend’s letter indicates, the leaders are still here. They may not be in total control of the frenzied ones, but they’ll be giving advice on where to hide.”

  “And where would that be?”

  “They don’t need to breathe, so they have a lot of options. The simplest is just to dig right into the earth like a worm, but they can also hide in any dark nook or cranny. In the city they’ll probably take to the sewers.”

  “Lognion will probably have thought of that,” offered Will.

  “So what if he has?” snapped Arrogan. “Even if they go down there in force, they can’t find them. Some will be in the smaller pipes; places so small no sane person would crawl into them. Others may hide underwater. This is how they survive. The only ones that will be caught are the newer ones.”

  “Then how do we win?” asked Will in exasperation.

  “Well, Lognion does have one thing right. It is helpful to limit their hiding places by doing daytime searches, but it won’t win the fight. The smarter ones can only be caught at night, when they come out to feed, which, of course, is also when things are the most dangerous for humans. What really makes no sense to me is the strategy here.”

  “Whose?”

  “The vampires,” answered the ring. “Whoever is leading them was obviously wise and careful, but once things fell apart with Tailtiu they should have fled. The old ones are smart. They know what happens when humans discover their presence. People panic. This daytime search is just the beginning. Eventually the people will start tearing the city apart, even to the point of ripping up the streets to expose the sewers. They’ll burn everything and anyone. If their initial goal was simply to demoralize the populace then this is going too far.”

  “Rob did say they were adaptable.”

  “But not suicidal,” countered Arrogan. “I wish I knew who was leading them.”

  Something popped into Will’s mind. “I forgot to tell you. A few days ago, when I was protecting the Nerrow’s home, I talked to one of them for a moment.”

  “How nice,” said the ring sarcastically.

  “It was a young girl and I asked her name. She was different from the others.”

  “First trolls, now this…”

  “She told me her name. It was Alexa.”

  The ring was silent for a brief time, then it exclaimed, “Shit.”

  “You know her?”

  “I met her master once. He was the one who got away from Aislinn. Alexa was his favorite pet. If she’s here then Androv won’t be far away. He’s no fool, William, and he was a third-order wizard long before I was even born. If you encounter him in person, you’re not likely to survive the meeting.”

  “A vampire wizard then?”

  “The worst of the worst,” agreed the ring. “He was Grim Talek’s second in command, and none of this is like him at all. He wouldn’t have left Tailtiu alone in that warehouse. He knows better, which means he planned on things going out of control.”

  “There must be some way to stop him.”

  “Listen up, William. You won’t be a match for a wizard like that for at least a hundred years, maybe never. He’s been at it so long that he can almost certainly reflex cast almost any spell he knows, and his t
uryn control will be flawless. The fact that he’s also a vampire is almost irrelevant compared to that fact.”

  “Sunlight will still destroy him. I have Ethelgren’s Illumination,” said Will.

  “And he uses spells to protect himself from sunlight. Hell, he’s probably walking around the city right this minute. He could be in the middle of the market, smiling and buying an apple from a fruit seller. With his mastery of magic, he might as well not even be a vampire; he’s more like a human, except that he’s immortal and can regenerate from any wound. He’s almost as dangerous as Grim Talek himself. The only difference between him and the lich is that vampires have to feed. Other than that he’s practically unkillable.”

  “I need some practical advice,” said Will. “You’ve made it clear I can’t beat him head to head, so what should I do?”

  “Remember what I told you when you found out about the demonic ritual last year?”

  Will sighed. “Yeah.”

  “Pretty much the same advice here.”

  “You already know I’m not going to abandon the city. So let’s skip over the argument and get to the part where you give practical advice for suicidal idiots. What about relics? My friend Janice was looking into the ones we have here at the school. There’s one that was left by Ethelgren, but supposedly it kills whoever tries to use it.”

  “Enchanted items are the recourse of lazy wizards,” said Arrogan angrily.

  “Why?”

  “They hamper your growth. Sure, they’re useful, but they become a crutch. Back in my day some wizards produced some truly miraculous items, but it was always a shortcut to power. In the end they wound up mediocre wizards because they relied on their toys to do everything for them.”

  “Not to quibble, but at the moment, I could use a shortcut to easy power,” pointed out Will. “If the old magic items were such a problem, why did anyone create them?”

  “Oh, they weren’t a problem, they were just too easy. Let’s say you want to be able to cast a spell instantly. One way is to learn it and practice it. Eventually you start reflex casting it naturally. But another option is to create an enchanted item with the spell built into it. You provide the turyn, it produces the spell. So long as you have the magic item, you can effectively reflex cast whatever spells are built into it. But the problem is that you quit doing the work on your own. You never develop the ability to do it yourself, because it’s always easier just to use the item. We had a number of great artificers, but they always fell into that trap. They’d become great craftsmen, but they never gained any more skill that the minimum required to cast a spell well enough to make an item for it.”

  “Well, Ethelgren was known as a vampire hunter, and he left behind an item. Surely it would allow me to use spells that would be helpful for this,” he suggested.

  There was silence for a moment, then the ring replied, “I can’t argue with that.”

  “Do you know of any reason why it would be deadly to try and use a magic item?”

  “Well, you know the wizards today can’t properly transform turyn. To use the spells in properly enchanted items you have to attune yourself, learn the type of turyn needed for each spell. It can take a few hours. I wouldn’t think any item could hurt those incapable of using it, but I’m guessing it was simply incompetence on the part of those who tried.”

  Will nodded, glancing at Tiny. “Then I have a plan.”

  “Even if you steal it, don’t think you can take on Androv,” cautioned Arrogan.

  “I’ll keep that in mind,” said Will, then he dismissed the limnthal and looked at Tiny again. The big warrior had heard a lot of new things in a short period of time, many of them disturbing, but he looked as solid and unperturbed as ever. “Let’s go.”

  Chapter 38

  “This is an awesome plan,” said Tiny enthusiastically as they strode purposefully across Wurthaven.

  Will gave him an odd look. “I haven’t even said what it is yet.”

  Tiny nodded. “I know.”

  “You’re just going to take it on faith?”

  “Considering how confidently you’re striding across the lawn, I can only assume that the plan is so audacious, so daring, so unanticipated, that the enemy will fall into a full rout without you even needing to confide the details to me before we engage them.”

  He couldn’t help but laugh. “You’ve gotten awfully eloquent lately.”

  “It’s the company I’ve been keeping,” said Tiny. After a brief pause, he added, “Present company excepted, of course. I meant Sir Kyle and his officers. I’ve had to practice my speaking skills. You understand, now that I’m a gentleman and all that. No offense to you though, Will, still being a commoner, you probably wouldn’t understand.”

  Will smirked. “None taken. So, do you want to hear what I intend to do?”

  “Not really. If it’s so uncertain you have to share it with me then it probably isn’t very good. You might shake my confidence in you.”

  “Are you done yet?”

  “I’m out of ideas.”

  “We’re going to steal the relic I was talking about a little while ago.”

  “Yeah, I understood that part already,” said Tiny. “What’s the plan?”

  “Well, that’s it really. I’ll sneak into the basement of the artifice building and use a few spells to spring it from where they’ve got it locked up. Then we clear out.”

  Tiny was moving his hand in quick circles in front of him. “And then?”

  “Then I’ll figure out how to use the relic. Hopefully once I know what sort of spells Ethelgren used, I’ll have a better idea of what we can do to stop all this.” Will waved his hands around to indicate the world in general.

  “That isn’t much of a plan.”

  Will nodded. “No, I suppose it isn’t. Do you have anything better?”

  “We go to the king and report everything we know. With his authority and the men and resources at his disposal, not to mention the advice of his military advisors, I’m fairly certain he could do something significant.”

  Just the thought of Lognion sent chills through Will and sparked phantom pains in the muscles of his back. “No good. The king whipped me half to death just a few days ago.”

  Tiny stopped walking, his face blank. Will pulled up and watched him carefully. After a moment he noticed that the tips of the warrior’s ears were turning red. “You should have told me that, Will,” said his friend, his voice tense.

  “We haven’t had a lot of time to talk since you got here. Are you all right?”

  His friend was taking deep breaths. “Not particularly. You know I’ve been whipped twice myself.”

  Both times because of me, thought Will.

  “Did he have a reason of any kind?”

  “Not really. He was threatening Laina for hiring an assassin, but in the end, it was mainly an excuse to take his frustration out on me, because I wouldn’t tell him where Selene was.” As he spoke, he saw a multitude of strange emotions crossing Tiny’s features. “Tiny, what’s wrong?”

  “You know, I like how things have gone for me lately,” said his friend. Then he waved his arms in a circle. “Not the past few days, obviously, but I mean being a squire. Since joining the army I’ve gained a sense of purpose. I have friends, comrades, and we’re serving a higher purpose, protecting Terabinia—and serving the king. If I really start to believe the king is an evil bastard, that all sort of falls apart for me.”

  Will was mildly shocked, not just at the big man’s convictions, but the amount of thought he had already put into them. He knew Tiny was a smart man, but his size still disarmed people. Always remember, he’s big, not dumb. “It’s always complicated, Tiny. Even if the king is a monster, which he surely is, the army still serves a noble purpose. Until he orders you to do something that directly contradicts your conscience, I don’t think you should fret over it.”

  “Oh, I’ll fret all I want. Until I know exactly what to do in such a situation,” said Tiny. “For
now, let’s stick to your stupid plan.”

  ***

  A few minutes later, they were looking at the front entrance of the Artifice building. Will was familiar with the place, though he’d never been in its basement. He’d already put a silent-armor spell on his clothing, and he had a chameleon spell, a sleep spell, and an unlocking spell ready and prepared. He was fairly confident he wouldn’t have any significant problems.

  “You just want me to wait out here?”

  “I already know the place. You don’t. I’m a student, you aren’t. Plus, it’s easier to sneak around alone. If anything goes wrong, I’ll put them to sleep and come back.”

  Tiny’s eyes were slits. “Something always goes wrong when you’re involved.” He looked over his shoulder. “There will be several search squads here in a few minutes. Shouldn’t you wait until after they’re gone?”

  Will shook his head, already walking toward the building. “Easier while the soldiers have everyone rattled. I can get it, hide, and wait until they’re gone.”

  “If you say so.”

  He was too far away to continue the conversation. Will strode through the entrance with casual confidence. He walked past a couple of students and down the main hall, wondering where he would find the basement stairs. A young man at the front desk stopped him with a question. “What are you looking for?”

  “Professor Dugas,” said Will immediately.

  “His office is over at the Engineering building.”

  “Sorry, I meant Salsbury—Professor Salsbury.”

  The other student, who Will didn’t recognize, shook his head. “Sorry, he isn’t in today. All the staff are in a meeting at Administration.”

  God damn it, just leave me alone, thought Will. He didn’t want to have to start disabling people before he even got started. “I’ll just leave a note on his door. Do you know where it is?”

  “Second floor. You’ll see the signs.”

  Will thanked him and headed down the hall, breathing a sigh of relief. He wanted to be out of sight before the soldiers entered and chaos ensued. The main stairs were off to the right, halfway down the main corridor, and now that he thought about it, they were probably the best place to start looking. They provided access to all the upper floors, so it seemed logical that the basement stairs probably originated in the same area.