Scholar of Magic

by Michael G. Manning

  “What about the ritual construct?”

  “You pick a little turyn out of the storm and use just that. Then let the construct pull more in on its own, sort of like its own independent dust devil within your larger dust devil. As it grows, you feed more of the external to it and eventually it consumes all of it and the ritual finishes.”

  He frowned. “Except the ritual construct isn’t a dust devil at all. It’s a static structure.”

  “Stop bitching, it’s a metaphor.”

  “Don’t you mean an analogy?”

  “No, asshole! As you just pointed out, it’s not actually the same. It’s more symbolic, so it’s a goddamn metaphor!”

  “Ahh,” said Will. “I keep getting them mixed up.”

  “Mister Cartwright?” It was Elizabeth. “Are you all right?”

  “Yes,” he said immediately, dismissing the limnthal.

  She turned to the others. “Get ready. We’re about to begin.”

  And just like that, a moment of enlightenment hit him like a bolt of lightning. All the tiny things that bothered him seemed to resolve into a single question. He wasn’t sure of its significance, but he had to know. “Wait.”

  Elizabeth held up her hand, a questioning look on her face as Will stepped out of the circle and went to Laina Nerrow. “Who was it that stole the money?”

  His sister blinked. “Pardon?”

  “From the charity. You said you wanted Selene’s help to pressure the person, but you didn’t say who it was.”

  “Aaron Tintabel.”

  Things began falling into place. Tintabel’s home was close to the Nerrow house, and the first vampires he had seen had leapt from its roof. Of course, that didn’t mean much, but with later context it made sense, especially now that the family was dead, and the only apparent survivor was Lord Tintabel himself. It didn’t matter much, but Will asked anyway, “Was he involved in the wool trade?”

  She nodded. “His estates produce much of the wool in Terabinia.”

  Jorn Slidden, the trader who had bought the white phosphorous, had dealt primarily in wool, meaning the man had probably been a close associate of Lord Tintabel’s. Will began walking away from everyone, in the direction of the main entrance. He couldn’t guess whether Slidden had been a willing or unwilling participant; in fact, the same might be true of Tintabel. If the lord had been involved, why would he kill his own family? Were they being used against him? Had he defied someone’s orders?

  And why had he stolen the money? Lord Tintabel was presumably a very rich man, certainly rich enough to have afforded the white phosphorous without resorting to petty theft—unless for some reason he had been unable to access his own accounts. A chill ran down Will’s spine. Since marrying Selene, he had apparently become wealthy, but until Blake had informed him he’d had no idea. He still had no idea how to access the money on his own. Tintabel might be the same. If the man calling himself Lord Tintabel was an imposter who had no idea how to access the real Tintabel’s funds.

  He activated the limnthal again. “Could a wizard disguise himself as someone else?”

  Arrogan sensed his urgency. “Of course.”

  “How?”

  “There’s plenty of ways. Illusion, flesh shaping, mental enchantments, you get the idea.”

  “Do you think a wizard could fool King Lognion that way?”

  “There’s always signs. A practitioner will notice an illusion, and mental tricks are much more difficult, but physical transformation might do the trick. You’ve said the king is very adept at noticing deception though, and his sense of turyn is well honed if he saw Aislinn’s mark on your forehead that time. For a wizard to fool someone like him, they’d have to be extremely experienced.”

  “How experienced?”

  “Centuries of practice probably, although it’s funny. When you’re dealing with someone like Lognion, who has such absolute certainty regarding his ability to detect falsehoods, if you can fool him a little, then you can easily fool him a lot. Someone like that never expects that someone could actually lie to him, so if you can trick his intuition, he’d probably believe anything you said, even if you said the moon was purple. See what I mean?”

  “Do you think Androv has that sort of skill?”

  “How do you think he’s survived until now? He’s been walking under the sun and disguising himself as a living person since before I was born. I doubt there’s anyone Androv couldn’t fool.”

  “Thanks.” Will dismissed the limnthal. From the corner of his eye he could see that everyone was watching him, but he didn’t care. While they were isolated, in the center of the city, Lord Tintabel was beside the king, and most of the king’s forces were spread out around the city wall. If Androv really was masquerading as Tintabel, and if the king couldn’t see through the man’s lies, then he’d believe anything the man said.

  So what if our ritual works? He’ll tell him it wasn’t enough, and that they have to go ahead with the purge of the city. Once that happens, he kills the king as well. Cerria would be thrown into complete disarray, and Darrow could claim it with only a token struggle. Greater Darrow would be reborn, under the rule of the Prophet.

  Assuming the Prophet is the one in control in Darrow. Will wasn’t sure what he could believe anymore.

  Rob’s warning had been spot on. Their ritual didn’t matter. Androv’s plan was completely indifferent to it. Will stared at the people waiting on him, depending on him, and he felt impotent, hopeless. Inevitably, his eyes traveled to his friends, Janice, Tiny, and his sister, Laina. They had pinned their hopes on him.

  And he had failed them—utterly.

  The only way to save them for certain would be to abandon the city. The sooner the better. He had sworn to kill the king anyway. Laina would be free of the man’s control, as would any wizards and sorcerers who survived the coming catastrophe, though it would mainly be those outside of the capital.

  All he had to do was make peace with letting a few hundred thousand people die. He could choose who to save, get the Nerrow family out of Cerria, gather his family in Barrowden. We could start anew in Trendham.

  He squeezed his eyes shut, blinking away tears of frustration, and then his feet began to move. Lifting his chin, he met Elizabeth Sundy’s gaze and said clearly, “I’m ready. I just needed a moment to clear my head.”

  Chapter 53

  The ritual seed, similar to a spell construct, came together flawlessly in the air between Will’s outstretched hands, shining in all its argent glory. The inner circle of participants began channeling turyn around him, forming thirteen separate bands of power that moved in a tenuous spiral. He caught the bands of turyn with his will, taking ownership and increasing their speed, while the thirteen controllers began accepting turyn from the other one hundred and sixty sources gathered beyond them.

  His mind felt like ice, like the sharp clarity of the first wind of autumn. Moving his arms outward so that they pointed straight out to either side, he faced his palms toward the flows of turyn, quickening them and maneuvering them into ever more powerful channels. Soon he was surrounded by a whirlwind of magical currents that continued to increase in intensity, blinding him to anything outside their boundary.

  Gradually, he teased delicate strands of power away from the whirlwind and began feeding them into the ritual seed, which pulsed and glowed before him. Will was exhilarated, as though he stood on a precipice looking down at a fall that might kill him. The power ripped at the very fabric of reality around him. It sang in his ears and tugged at his soul, tempting him to step off the cliff and join it.

  To become pure magic.

  But he was a wizard. The heart of wizardry was control, not submission, not transformation. Asserting himself, Will maintained the balance, refusing to be pulled away, to surrender his life or his humanity. Then a strange voice came to him. Stubbornness is good, but can you maintain it forever? Or will you become like me?

  It sounded male, and though he hadn’t heard it with his
ears, he recognized the speaker. It was the man he had met when he died. The one who had counseled him on whether or not returning to life was worth it. Will was curious, but he couldn’t afford distractions, so he ignored it.

  A crashing sound echoed through the cathedral, and Will heard someone scream. The vampires had found them, but Will could do nothing. He continued feeding turyn into the ritual seed. To stop would mean their deaths.

  The sounds of battle continued to assail him, grunts and cries, the grinding of stone, and the wet noises of flesh being torn, and in his mind, Will began to fear for those he loved. But he couldn’t see what was happening.

  Wild magic can help, advised the voice. Your focus is strong enough.

  He didn’t have time to wonder at the source, but Will understood. Adjusting his vision, he reduced his sensitivity to turyn, and the brilliant glow around him faded, becoming transparent. He could see.

  Laina and Mark Nerrow stood side by side, while Tiny and Darla stood in front of them. Their elementals, earth, fire, air, and yet more fire, danced around them, burning and destroying anything that came near. Some of the students assisting in the defense were already down.

  Laina’s earth elemental provided substantial defense, but they couldn’t see through its walls, so she couldn’t surround them with an impenetrable dome. Instead she used moving panels, stone walls that flowed and shifted back and forth, allowing them a view at the battle around them. As Will watched, one of the undead leapt through a gap, only to be met by Darla’s silver blades.

  The Arkeshi didn’t have room to maneuver, though, and with Mark and Laina behind her she couldn’t retreat. Despite the timing of her attacks, she might have been overwhelmed, but for Tiny’s timely intervention. Seizing the fiend with both hands, the big man used his mass to arrest the creature’s momentum.

  It was too strong for him to pin, though, and the vampire turned on him, clawing and biting at his armor, but that was enough. Tiny held it in place long enough for Darla’s silvered weapons to disable it, cutting through tendons and joints. Soon they were kicking the pieces of the creature back outside their little stronghold and waiting for the next entrant.

  The single-entry idea had worked perfectly, but for the obvious flaw. As they’d predicted, someone among the vampires was smart enough to direct some of the monsters to find other entrances. Laina and her father alone were enough to guard the door, but those that remained of the other student sorcerers were in trouble.

  Two of the stone-sealed windows had already been breached, and there were burning remains on the floor beneath them. Fire elementals were picking off vampires as they entered, but the fiends moved so quickly that some kept slipping through.

  While he watched, one such free agent ran up the aisle toward an unsuspecting defender. It slammed into a point-defense shield, then lost its head a second later as a force-lance tore through its neck. Will felt a brief tremor run through the currents of turyn around him, but they stabilized a moment later.

  Then he spotted another vampire that had somehow escaped notice. It was crawling down one wall like a roach as it prepared to drop down on some of the ritual participants. He wrecked the beast with three force-lances, and then one of the defenders noticed and dispatched a fire elemental to dispose of the quivering remains.

  A juggler had come to Barrowden once when he was little, and Will imagined that his experience felt somewhat similar to what the performer had done back then. He continued to balance the devastating currents of power, while occasionally throwing force-lances out to disrupt the enemies that had gotten past the defenders. It was like keeping a dozen balls in the air and unexpectedly tossing one out to the audience now and then.

  He had never learned to juggle, but Will was starting to think he might be good at something much better, at least for a wizard. He fought to contain a giggle of hysteria as he continued feeding turyn to the ritual seed, all while letting his peripheral vision inform his reflexes, blasting anything that moved too quickly.

  He felt like a god.

  The student defenders rallied, burning the bodies of the ones he brought down and consolidating their control over the open windows. The entry of vampiric invaders slowed, and soon the cathedral sanctuary was quiet, except for the heavy breathing of those who were grateful for the rest.

  Will didn’t need a rest, though. He could have kept it up forever. The power was spinning around him effortlessly, dancing in and out as it passed between his hands and entered the ritual seed. How long he spent like that he was unsure—long enough that it began to seem normal, as though he’d spent his entire life doing nothing but that.

  He became exquisitely aware of the feeling, the touch of turyn, the way it moved. He’d never controlled that much power before, not firsthand. It required a delicate touch and a sense of rhythm, like dancing. Fortunately, unlike dancing, he seemed to be a natural. Once you’ve felt it, you can never forget, said the stranger’s voice. It becomes part of you and everything changes. You are reborn, child; this is your baptism in magic.

  “Who are you?” Will cried, but he didn’t receive an answer.

  And then it was time. Seizing the currents, Will sent them crashing inward to fill a ritual construct that was finally large and strong enough to contain them. His head fell back, and his mouth opened as his voice screamed out with joy, though he had no idea what he might be yelling. It was like an orgasm—no, it was better.

  Argent energy streamed outward in the shape of millions upon millions of brilliant silver spheres. They blinded him even through closed eyelids, and they kept coming, an endless flow emerging from the living womb of power he had built. Those around him fell to their knees, covering their eyes with hands and arms, trying to block out the searing light. But Will merely laughed. He had changed his eyes, dimming everything, and when the others could finally look at him again, they saw that where his eyes should be there were only unsettling black orbs.

  The ritual power finally finished and passed beyond the cathedral walls, soaring into the night and dipping into the earth and sky. It rushed over the city like a wave, purifying everything, and wherever the vampires hid, they perished, burning away into piles of ash that the breeze soon scattered.

  As the light died away, Will’s eyes returned to normal, but he couldn’t stop the giddy laughter from spilling from his lips. It had felt so good. He was nothing but smiles—until he saw the bodies of the students who had died.

  Blood was splattered across the sanctuary floor and walls, some red, some black. Scorch marks covered everything, along with crumbled pieces of stone and splintered wood. But while the vampire bodies had disintegrated under the withering glare of the ritual’s magic, those of his fellow students had not.

  He got himself under control, and then his ears began to decipher the sounds around him, a mixture of quiet sobbing and tearful goodbyes being said to friends who wouldn’t see the sun rise tomorrow. Looking toward the door, he was grateful to see that his friends and family all appeared safe and unharmed.

  Two students, one male and one female, stood out to him, for they had died while holding onto each other. He didn’t know either of them, but their faces were vaguely familiar. Unlike most of the other victims, these two showed no signs of tooth or claw. They had died instantly, from the distinctive, fist-sized hole of a force-lance that had gone through both of them simultaneously.

  Will’s mouth went dry, and he took a step back. Several other students were kneeling beside them, speaking quietly to one another, and when they looked up at him, he saw the knowledge burning in their eyes. They knew who had killed their friends. “It was an accident,” he said weakly, barely able to breathe. “I didn’t know.”

  A fellow he did recognize, Phillip Wakefield, had just come closer, and he asked, “What happened to Lynsey and Simon?”

  One of the nearby girls answered, “One of those things was running at Simon, and Lynsey tried to get in front of it, but then—” Her tear-stained face turned toward W
ill.

  “—Will tried to save them,” declared Laina, her voice carrying loudly over the din of soft voices. “Just like he saved the rest of you. This time he missed.”

  “But…”

  Her eyes flashed angrily. “But nothing! If he hadn’t tried, they would have both died anyway. If he had tried and missed them, they would have died anyway. He tried and he failed, but ultimately it was the vampire’s fault. The monsters are the ones who are responsible for all of this. Save your blame for those who truly deserve it.”

  No one said anything for a moment, then the voices slowly resumed. Through it all, Will heard someone say, “He was laughing the entire time…”

  Laina’s ears were just as sharp. “How many of you nearly died tonight, when they started coming through the windows? Have you forgotten already? How many of you nearly had your throats ripped out before someone smashed your killer with a bolt of force? If I hear one more remark suggesting what he did was anything less than heroic, I’ll teach you how the spell works myself!”

  “Laina, you need to calm down. We’re all stressed here…,” began her father, reaching out to put a hand on her shoulder.

  Laina sidestepped him and continued, her voice rising to the ceiling in a commanding shout. “Do you understand me?”

  No one said anything for a while, then people began lowering their eyes, and the air filled with a smattering of yeses. Elizabeth Sundy and Mark Nerrow began calling for order after that, sorting through who had been wounded and who hadn’t. Other than the dead, only seven people had been scratched or bitten. Will summoned blood-cleanse potions from the limnthal and gave them to Laina, who passed them out to those who needed them.

  She made clear to each recipient that it was Will who had created and supplied the potions. Janice sidled up to Will and quietly remarked, “You seem to have a tireless advocate defending you.”

  He smiled weakly. “Not sure I’m worth it.”

  She elbowed him in the ribs. “Don’t make me tell Tiny you said that. You know how he feels.”