by Gage Lee
“No,” she said. “The process is too dangerous for a mere student. While it wouldn’t be the first time you’ve nearly killed yourself doing something foolhardy, Cruzal would skin me alive if I even indirectly allowed her little prize pet to hurt himself.”
I was Cruzal’s pet? That was news to me. Maybe the headmistress and I needed to have another little chat.
“If that’s what you’re worried about, don’t be,” I said casually. “We can draw up some papers that hold you blameless, and I’ll sign them. This is important, Professor Ishigara.”
She took another long sip of her coffee to gather her thoughts and banish the anger aspects dancing around her head like drunken fireflies. “As much as I disagree with, well, everything you do, the headmistress is correct. You are valuable to this school. I won’t let you destroy yourself for some experiment.”
There were two branches through this argument that I could see. One was to come clean and tell Ishigara what I was doing and why. That might earn her trust and convince her that this wasn’t some stupid whim. But if she believed my story enough to help me, she’d realize the implications of the quest. She’d tell someone above her—Cruzal, the clan elders, maybe even the dragons—before she’d scriven anything for me.
That was a disaster waiting to happen.
The second, much less kind option, was to pull rank. That would definitely light a fire under Ishigara. It might also infuriate her. Being bossed around by one of her students would not sit well with the professor.
She hadn’t left me a lot of choice, though.
“What if a clan elder asked you to do this as a personal favor to me?” I asked.
For the first time, I saw a glimpse of sympathy cross Ishigara’s features. “If you could find an elder willing to support your cause, then, yes, Mr. Warin—”
“Elder,” I said firmly.
“Excuse me?” Ishigara asked, honestly confused.
“I’m Elder Warin,” I said. “And I support my cause.”
Ishigara looked flustered by my pronouncement. Clearly, the Consul Triad’s news that I was the Shadow Phoenix boss man hadn’t gone out as planned. Consul Reyes probably had something to do with that.
“That’s impossible,” Ishigara said.
“It’s definitely possible,” I said. “I’m surprised Cruzal didn’t spread the word.”
“It’s been a busy year,” Ishigara said. “What with the Right of Primacy disrupting everything.”
I approached the professor’s desk and rested my hands between two piles of paper on its front edge. “This is important, Professor Ishigara. I’m asking you, not as your student, but as the leader of one of the sacred clans. This needs to happen. Will you help me?”
Confusion and worry aspects flickered in her aura. I’d be worried, too, if a student I’d harassed was suddenly my superior in Empyreal society.
Ishigara pulled herself together and drained the last of her coffee. “This is an unprecedented situation, Elder Warin. While I do not approve of the way you’ve approached this request, I will provide my services to you for an appropriate fee. I must consult with—”
“No one,” I said, my voice low and stern. “Not your own clan elders, not Cruzal. No one.”
“This is most unusual,” Ishigara protested. “How can you ask me to withhold this information from my superiors? Not even one in your position can insist on such terms.”
“I’ll make it worth your while,” I promised.
“I don’t see how that’s possible. You’re asking me to put my reputation at risk.”
“No one will ever know,” I said to Ishigara. “And I’ll give you one pound of orichalcum when this is all said and done. Orichalcum made by my own hand.”
My offering’s implication sank in, and Ishigara’s eyes went wide. If she did what I asked, she’d end up with a small fortune in sacred metal.
And leverage over a clan elder.
I’d hated to make the offer and hated it even more when I saw the avaricious gleam in the professor’s eyes. But I was asking a lot of her, and the only way to ensure her silence was to overpay for it. I’d have to do the same for Krieger, but it would be worth it in the short term.
In the long run, I might regret it. But future Jace had a way of getting himself out of problems I’d caused. He’d be fine.
I hoped.
“Very well,” Ishigara said. “I’ll draw up the papers for you to sign. It will take me some time to pull together the necessary scrivening templates. Let’s say two weeks?”
“Two days,” I said. “I don’t have time to spare.”
Ishigara narrowed her eyes and drummed her fingers on the desktop. “Very well,” she said, “two days. I will see you in my sanctum after dinner.”
We didn’t shake hands before I left, and I never got that cup of coffee from her. Still, I’d gotten what I came for, even if it had cost me more dearly than I’d hoped.
And as long as the ritual to create the orichalcum didn’t blow up in my face like a bomb, this leg of the quest would be over. Xaophis would lose, my clan would be safe, and the world would, once again, avoid disaster.
That seemed like a worthy trade to me.
The Orichalcum
ISHIGARA’S WORKROOM was unlike anything I’d ever seen in the School. Enormous potted plants around the circular, domed room’s perimeter perfumed the air with rich, faintly citrus scents. I glanced at one plant beside the door as the professor ushered us into her sanctum and saw that gleaming crystals of all shapes and sizes filled the pot instead of dirt. Most of them were a pale, translucent green, but there were sparks of blue and white scattered amongst them. Most of the crystals held only traces of jinsei, but veins of the sacred energy crawled through the plant. Silver streams flowed up through its roots, coalesced in its woody stock, and spread out into spiderwebs of branching threads throughout the leaves.
Jinsei filled the other plants, too, and threads of the energy spread between them in a fragile, complex web that encircled the room’s perimeter. Though the plants seemed entirely natural to my eye, something told me that the professor had covered them with intricate scrivenings to make this one of the most secure rooms in the entire school.
“Please, take a seat,” Ishigara said, motioning to a circle of embroidered cushions arranged around the center of the floor. There were fifteen seats there, enough for me, my clan, Ishigara, and Professor Krieger. Ishigara directed my students to form two arcs of six seats, with a single seat between them on one end, and two seats separating them on the other.
My students hauled a pair of heavy containers into the center of the room before taking their seats. Frenzied sparks of light danced behind the vessels’ translucent surfaces, as if they contained swarms of giant angry fireflies.
“This is where you will sit, J—Elder Warin,” Ishigara said. “Professor Krieger and I will close the circle on the other side. Before we begin, though, I must create the ritual scrivenings. If you would remove your robes, I can get started.”
While I’d known this was coming, it was still embarrassing to strip down to a pair of shorts in front of everyone. It was bad enough for my students to see me half naked. It was another thing to stand there with my arms stretched out while Ishigara approached with a pot of ink in one hand and a blunted inscriber in the other. I felt frighteningly exposed in more than a physical sense.
Ishigara and I weren’t on the friendliest of terms, though Krieger had assured me she would not sabotage the ritual. Despite his assurances, though, I didn’t relish letting a potential enemy put her tricky scrivenings right on my skin.
“It’s a little cold in here,” I said, trying to lighten the mood.
“It will get much colder before it warms up again,” Professor Ishigara said with a faint smile. She dipped the inscriber in the ink and went to work on my right bicep. “This is the symbol for copper.”
She drew an ornate symbol similar to the primary elements I’d learned in her class, then ma
de it far more elaborate by encircling it with swoops and swirls, knots and arcs. By the time the professor had finished, the sigil wrapped all the way around my arm and covered it from shoulder to elbow in intricate patterns.
Ishigara leaned back to examine her work, then nodded to herself. She made a few strokes, so small and faint I couldn’t even see them, and smiled at her handiwork.
“And this is for gold,” the professor said and turned her attention to my other arm. She took another hour to complete the band of strokes, but it would’ve taken me days to inscribe the intricate geometry. If I’d been able to do it at all.
When Ishigara completed the gold symbol, a faint but insistent humming rose around the room’s perimeter. The plants on one side of the domed chamber took on the sheen of copper in their leaves, while those on the other side looked dipped in liquid gold. The plants shivered in a breeze I didn’t feel, and their leaves tinkled against one another like distant wind chimes.
“That’s it?” I asked.
Ishigara laughed. “No, those are the primary symbols, but the real work is still to come. We’ll start with a purity circuit here.”
At first, the inscribing tool was warm against my skin. But as Ishigara’s pattern looped out from the center of my sternum, the metal became colder. Before she’d completed the first full circle of symbols on my chest, the inscribing tool was freezing against my skin. Water condensed on its handle and dripped to the floor between Ishigara’s fingers.
“This work attracts elemental spirits,” Ishigara explained, drawing an intricate loop around the left side of my chest as she spoke. “They require energy to stay so close to the world of mortals, and they take it in the form of warmth. Fortunately, it’s a very localized phenomenon and both of us have strong enough cores to resist it.”
“At least tell me you’re almost done,” I said. While my core protected me from the worst effects of cold or hot weather, it did very little to make me comfortable in the meantime.
“Soon,” Ishigara said.
Which wasn’t exactly true. Ishigara spent half an hour finishing the purity circuit, and then another hour to draw a unity seal in its center. By the time she finished, the symbols on both my arms were connected to the purity circuit by a series of complex scrivenings that ran from my biceps, across my shoulders, around my neck, and finally down to my chest.
“Couldn’t we have done all this before you froze my clan members half to death?” I asked the professor.
“No,” she said with a tone that made me feel like a first-year student all over again. “The scrivening ignited the protective wards around my sanctum. Everyone involved in the ritual must be inside the circle when that happens.”
“Sorry, guys,” I said to my clan members. “I don’t make the rules. Now what?”
“This process can be difficult,” Ishigara said. “The theory, however, is simple. You will forge a connection from your right hand to the gold aspects and from your left hand to the copper aspects. As you pull the aspects into your aura, they will flow toward their elemental symbols. That will pull them into the purity circuit, which will purge any trace contaminants.”
“Seems like the scrivenings do all the work,” I said. “What’s my part?”
Ishigara tapped her inscribing tool against the smaller unity seal she’d drawn over my core. “Get the gold and copper into this, in equal amounts. They will resist being combined.”
“They’re aspects,” I said confidently. “I think I can handle them.”
“Try it and see,” Ishigara said with a faint smile. “But do not underestimate the difficulty of this task. Or its danger.”
“Nobody said this would be dangerous,” I said with an accusing glare for Krieger.
“All alchemy is dangerous,” the jinsei sorcery professor explained. “You’re tampering with primal forces of nature. The reaction between gold and copper can be... energetic. If you lose control of the process, there is a small, but still significant, chance of an explosion.”
“I’ve been working very hard to protect my clan members,” I said with a scowl. “I do not want to blow them up.”
“That’s what the circle is for,” Ishigara said as she took her seat and gestured for Krieger to do the same. “Our serpents will bind us together. My ties to the plants in this room will broaden our ritual alignment. If an explosion does happen, the circle’s defenses will disperse it through those connections. The circle will also prevent contaminants from breaching your aura. I hope that allays your fears, J—Elder Warin.”
“I’m not afraid,” I grumbled as I took my seat. “Let’s get this show on the road.”
Ishigara’s serpents appeared behind her. They seemed woven from smoke and shadow, their tips flared like cobra’s hoods. The one on the left reached out for Krieger, while the other stretched out toward Hazel. “Link your serpents,” she commanded.
My clan members responded without hesitation. I’d told them all just how important this process was after I’d contacted Ishigara and was pleased to see them all taking it seriously. A few moments later, we were all bound together and jinsei flowed through our serpents to form an unbroken circle. A second, larger circle stretched out around us as the plants joined our defenses.
“You may proceed, Elder Warin,” Ishigara said.
My breath flowed in a smooth, even circle as jinsei cycled through my core. I reached out with another pair of serpents to bridge the gap between my hands and the containers in the middle of our circle. The serpents’ bladed tips deftly opened a small hatch on top of each container and plunged through them.
I envisioned the copper and gold aspects trapped in those containers flowing up my arms into the purity circuit inscribed on my chest. In my mind’s eye, the two metal aspects revolved slowly, forming a neat and even circle that drained into the unity seal, where they became the purest orichalcum aspects.
That was the process. All I had to do was make it work.
Five minutes passed.
Ten.
Twenty.
Something moved at the edges of my thoughts. Fear of failure. Worry over all the effort we stood to lose. The sneaking suspicion that even if I completed everything perfectly, there was still a chance the quest would end in disaster.
Though at least some of those were valid concerns, there was no space in the ritual for them. I banished every worry and every other sensation from my awareness by diving deeper into my meditation. I no longer felt the pressure of my body against the floor or heard the gentle, rhythmic breathing of the circle of allies that surrounded me. The scents from Ishigara’s dozens of crystalline plants faded away. My mind pulled back from the world until it hung alone in a void.
From there, I concentrated all my willpower on the metal aspects just out of reach.
The gold aspects jiggled first. They moved up my serpent and to my arm with painstaking, trembling hesitation. Their reluctance bore down on my mind like a heavy weight, making it difficult to concentrate. But I refused to let a bunch of mindless aspects beat me. My thoughts held onto them and forced them to follow the lines of scrivening that Ishigara had created.
Finally, a steady stream of golden lights poured into me, as if dragged out of the container by a siphon. They settled in the paths traced by Ishigara until, at last, they made their way to the purity circuit. There, the aspects spun through the scrivening, faster and faster, until they were an orbiting blur inside the circuit.
But even as I celebrated that victory, I knew I had a long way to go. The aspects grew heavier by the moment, as if the weight of the element they represented was bearing down on my heart and lungs. It wouldn’t be long before I’d have to release them.
I had to get the copper into the circuit before I lost all those aspects. My clan mates would kill me if we had to spend the next month purifying even more gold and copper.
If they were still my clan mates in a month. That seemed unlikely.
The copper was less difficult to control than the go
ld. Those aspects soon reached the purity circuit on my chest, forming a larger circle outside the spinning gold. The two elements orbited in opposite directions, faster and faster, becoming blurs of copper and gold light. More and more aspects emerged from the containers until the metals’ weight ground against my skin as if they wanted to break through my body and merge with my core.
The intense pressure was distracting, but the process was nearly over. All that remained was to move the aspects into the binding seal.
Forcing the metals to obey my will was difficult, though. The relentless pressure from the aspects, and the growing heat as they ground against one another in endless orbits, challenged my rhythmic breathing. My control slipped. Panic wormed its way into my thoughts.
Time was running out. It wouldn’t be more than a few seconds before I lost control. The aspects would flood out of my aura and then—
No.
I willed the aspects to do as I commanded. I was an artist. This was well within my power. My core creaked and groaned in an ominous reminder of the delamination I’d suffered not so long ago. I ignored the strain.
Nothing—not advancement, not power, not the orichalcum—came without struggle and effort. I put everything I had behind the pressure to merge these two elements.
They resisted. A high-pitched squeal rang through my thoughts, the sound of metal grinding against metal. The purity circuit on my chest burned, and my skin smoked. Pain found its way into the void of meditation. My breath rebelled.
And then, in the blink of an eye, everything changed.
The copper and gold flooded into the unity sigil. The aspects roiled around one another, like oil and water. They resisted merging, and their struggle left me shaking and weak. My body trembled with the effort of containing their energy, and I knew time was nearly up. The amount of energy generated by the reaction was nearing a critical mass.