by Pirateaba
She glanced up at the Golem. Cognita’s face seldom changed, but Ceria could remember her smiling just once.
“Cognita? Did you really teach Pisces one of Archmage Zelkyr’s spells?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
The Truestone Construct—the thing that had a name and a mind—paused.
“He asked. And it was a an incomplete spell. I believe Pisces has a chance of completing it. In his own way.”
Another revelation. This one hurt Ceria’s heart. It was one thing to know Pisces was smart, acknowledge that he could do things Ceria could not. He was a genius, but this? Pisces had a chance to do what Archmage Zelkyr could not. Cognita had said so. It made Ceria doubt the angry words she had spoken to him.
“Do you support him doing necromancy? Do you even care?”
“I see in his magic something akin to what mages do when they shape Golems, but different. I care not if they are dead bodies or clay and stone that is shaped. I believe his ideas are intriguing. I wonder if he will be able to do as he claims. Even for Zelkyr, the only creation he was able to imbue with true intelligence was a Truestone Golem, my kind. What base material would be equivalent among the dead?”
Ceria had no idea. But she shivered again to think of a walking thing, some shambling zombie with rotting flesh that could grow stronger. What if it could talk? What if it could think, like Cognita? A talking, leveling undead was too close to an actual person, yet indescribably far away from life at the same time.
“I don’t know if Pisces can do it. But I feel like it’s wrong. That’s all I can say. I’m sorry. I have to go.”
She didn’t want to look at Cognita anymore. The Golem nodded.
“I will leave you to your business before mentioning one last issue. The day when your master and four other mages plan to challenge me is fifteen days away. I trust they are all prepared and aware of the consequences of failure?”
The breath caught in Ceria’s chest. She stared back at Cognita, eyes wide. How did the Golem know?
“That—that’s right. They know. My master knows.”
Cognita nodded once again.
“Please inform her that if she or any of the other mages desire to wait or change the appointed time, I would be happy to do so. Good night, Ceria Springwalker.”
She turned and began to walk away. Ceria took one look at Cognita’s back and fled.
—-
“You told Cognita when you’d be challenging her?”
Illphres looked up with a frown as Ceria slammed the door behind her and stormed into the room.
“Told who?”
“Cognita!”
Ceria clutched at her hair. She’d run all the way to Illphres’ room. The mage shrugged.
“Oh, yes. We told her.”
“Why?”
“It’s convenient. It means she knows and won’t be busy, and it means we can’t back out.”
“But if she knows, she could set traps. Prepare—”
“She won’t. She never has and never will. But this way we won’t alert the entire academy when Cognita goes striding up to the top floor.”
Illphres was too calm. She was always calm. She held a book with a light blue bound cover in her hands, glancing at the page and at Ceria as she spoke. It was her personal spellbook.
“Calm down. Stop pacing. It’s annoying.”
Ceria stopped. She whirled and looked at her master.
“Tell me you can do it.”
Illphres sighed and closed the book. She stared at the ceiling, and then looked at Ceria.
“We have a chance.”
“How do you know?”
“Because it was nearly done once.”
“Really?”
Ceria’s ears perked up. Illphres nodded.
“A group of mages nearly succeeded. So we can too.”
“But how do you know? Is there a history or—”
“A few records of challenges, but no. We can tell just from the Golems in the room. Sit. Think about how we can tell.”
Ceria sat unwillingly. She fidgeted, and then came up with the only explanation she could think of.
“The missing Golem. The one replaced by the metal one.”
“Exactly. That’s proof.”
“But that’s only one of the five Golems—”
“No, it’s a sign. Think.”
Illphres sighed as her tone grew waspish. She hated explaining things when she thought Ceria should understand.
“Any idiot could figure it out. Archmage Zelkyr made this challenge for any mages trying to reach the higher floors, didn’t he? He designed it to be challenged over and over again, which meant that he would expect his four guardian Golems—plus Cognita—to never be destroyed. They would fight in tandem and overwhelm their opponents without sustaining enough damage to be destroyed.”
“So the missing Golem—”
“It’s a sign that someone broke their formation. And nearly won, too. Because if they could isolate one of the Golems long enough to destroy it, it meant they could hold off the rest. None of those Golems would be easy to disassemble with any one spell.”
“And that means you can all do the same. Easier, especially if one of the Golems is weaker…”
Ceria sat up, eyes shining. Illprhes nodded calmly.
“We can do it. There is a possibility.”
“That makes me feel better. I was talking with Cognita—”
Slowly, Ceria explained her argument to Illphres. The mage rolled her eyes when Ceria was done.
“I heard about that. Levelling undead? I don’t see why everyone’s so upset. ”
“But—”
“It’s no different from anyone else leveling up. A half-Elf can live for centuries if they want, how’s that different from an undead? It sounds like it would be hard to make more than one or two. If they get out of hand you can destroy them. The real reason you’re upset is because you hate necromancy.”
Ceria bit her lip and made no reply. Illphres sighed.
“Necromancy is magic. I don’t fear your friend. He reanimates the dead. I freeze people. And I hardly look better than the undead. You have seen beneath my mask. You know that.”
“It’s not the same.”
“No?”
Illphres raised an eyebrow.
“Magic is magic, and that boy Pisces was your friend, once. Does knowing he practices necromancy change all that?”
“Yes!”
“I suppose you weren’t good friends, then. Enough.”
Illphres waved away Ceria’s objections and levitated the book in her hands over to the half-Elf.
“Study the [Glacial Spear] spell. I want you to make at least some progress before the challenge day.”
“I’d learn more if you let me keep the book! Or made me a copy!”
Ceria complained as she bent over the pages of tightly-written text. Illphres laughed sardonically.
“Copy the book? I don’t know how to write magical spells down. That’s a specialist class, [Magical Scribe] or some such. And it would take a Level 40 one to write that spell down.”
“Really?”
Ceria looked up with a frown. Illphres nodded. She began lecturing as Ceria listened with one ear and read with both her eyes.
“Spellbooks are rare because they can’t be copied without extensive study by a powerful mage, or a class with similar Skills. And scribing a spell is only possible for someone of an equal or higher level than the spell itself. So a Tier 4 spells might be rare but findable in a given collection of spellbooks, but Tier 6 would be extremely difficult to locate. And Tier 8—”
“How would anyone learn the spells, then?”
“By piecing together clues left by other mages, following instructions in languages other than magic to come up with it. Or by leveling and obtaining it or coming up with such a spell themselves.”
“So this spellbook—”
“Is mine.”
“Can you let me
borrow—”
“No.”
—-
Two weeks was too long and too short for Ceria. She went through each day emotionally and mentally exhausted, and tossed and turned each night with nervous, physical energy.
That also led to her actively avoiding her friends, and them avoiding her. Ceria was waspish, irritable, and prone to snap at anything and everything. She confined herself to her room when she wasn’t with Illphres or the other mages.
Three days before the challenge, Ceria was in her room, almost out of her mind with the agony of waiting. She heard a knock at the door and snapped.
“Come in already!”
Pisces entered. Ceria snapped again.
“Get out!”
“Please, just listen!”
His eyes were sparkling and Pisces was rubbing his hands together. He looked like he had in the past, full of life and enthusiasm. Ceria couldn’t bear to see it, not now, not when she was so anxious.
“Pisces, I’m not in the mood—”
“Hear me out, hear me out I implore you! I was just talking with Cognita—”
It was the last name Ceria wanted to hear right now, but Pisces couldn’t know that. She tried to stare a hole in his face as he talked excitedly onwards.
“She and I were discussing intelligence, cognizance and how only she among all the Golems has it. I opined that it was a mystery why Zelkyr would have failed with other Golems when she revealed this to me! Archmage Zelkyr only imbued Cognita with the capacity for thought. But over the years the other Golems have achieved a low level of intelligence, at least communally.”
Ceria just stared at Pisces, arms crossed, trying to decode his words. He stared at her, practically shining with energy.
“Don’t you see what this means? The Golems in Wistram can think! They can learn to think, that is! And if there’s a possibility of them learning, why not in a creation designed for that capacity? Why, we know that feral Ghouls can think in a primitive hunter-predator sense, and other undead like Crypt Lords, Liches, and Revenants can all—”
“I don’t want to hear it.”
Ceria cut Pisces off flatly. He looked astonished. She stared at him.
“I don’t want to hear it. I don’t want to hear about Cognita—I want you to get out!”
Pisces stopped. He stepped back, looking hurt and offended. He half-turned towards her open door as if he was going to storm out, and changed his mind. Instead, he turned towards her, and spoke pleadingly. She didn’t want to hear, but his words washed over her.
“Ceria, I don’t understand why you’re not giving me a chance to speak. I’m trying to prove a point. I know you have objections to my—to what I do, but please, listen! My goal isn’t to destroy the world or create armies like Az’kerash. When I practice necromancy, the reason I started was—”
It was too much. Ceria interrupted Pisces with the only thing she could use. The truth.
“They’re going to challenge her.”
He stopped, frowning.
“Who?”
Ceria knew she shouldn’t tell him. But now the dam had burst and she let it out. It was a relief and terrifying to say it out loud.
“Illphres. Jurix. Bastam. Ophelia. Qum. They’re all part of a group—they’ve been training all year and they’re going to challenge Zelkyr’s Golems to go to the higher levels.”
The half-Elf stared down at her hands, at her bitten fingernails. She saw Pisces sit down hard on the side of her bed out of the corner of her eyes.
“When?”
“It’s going to be three days from now. Right before lunch.”
Her breath caught in her chest at the words. It was out. The secret was spoken, and now Ceria felt it pressing down on her harder than before. Pisces spoke quietly.
“Illphres and four others? They’re serious?”
Ceria nodded. Pisces went still. She could feel him close to her. A familiar presence. Comforting.
“I would advise you to stop them. If I thought they would listen. Cognita is—an unknown quantity. I believe she is more than a match for any of the Archmages of today by herself.”
“Yeah. She probably is.”
Ceria hugged her knees to her chest and rocked back and forth a bit. She nodded and then shook her head.
“But they’re going to do it. Illphres is going to fight. I can’t stop her. I wouldn’t dare try. She has to do this, don’t you see, Pisces? If we can’t go above, we can’t be true mages. Wistram is stagnant. We don’t have real Archmages, just fakes! Don’t you see—”
“I know.”
Pisces cut her off shortly. Ceria looked and saw he was staring at his feet as he sat on her bed.
“I know. Wistram is decaying. Magic is not as powerful as it was before Zelkyr. Powerful, yes, and one could argue there are more mages being produced by the academy as a result of the Golem’s presence, but—I know. And I believe Cognita knows this too.”
“She does?”
“We have spoken about it. On occasion.”
Ceria grabbed for Pisces. He jerked, but she yanked at his dirty robes. Part of his shoulder and chest became exposed as he fought to loosen her deathgrip.
“Ceria—”
“Don’t warn her. I mean, she knows, but don’t tell her anything. She’s—”
“I won’t. It wouldn’t matter if I did. Cognita wouldn’t cheat. She’s waiting for a mage to—Ceria, please. I won’t tell anyone.”
Slowly, Ceria let go. Pisces adjusted his robes and the two fell into silence. After a few minutes, Pisces spoke again.
“Thank you for telling me. I won’t reveal a thing. I promise.”
“Thank you.”
“And I hope—I most sincerely hope Illphres and the others defeat Cognita. I would like you to know that, Ceria.”
“I do.”
They stared at each other. It had been a long time since Ceria really met Pisces’ eyes. He looked older, she realized. In a few short years he’d grown older, from a late teenager into a young man. Older, more tired, more bitter.
But still him.
Pisces looked away first. He stood up, brushing himself off and then realizing he was in Ceria’s room and stopping.
“I’ve got to go. I’ll leave you to—we can talk later, Ceria.”
He began to leave but stopped. Ceria was holding on to the back of his robe.
“Don’t go.”
He looked back at her, eyes wide. Ceria stared at him. Slowly, Pisces sat back down.
“The door’s open.”
“Yes.”
Ceria said it without really caring. She and Pisces sat together with the open doorway leading out into the corridor. Part of her told her she was an idiot for blurting out all those secrets, but Ceria knew few people ventured down this hallway, especially at night.
She didn’t stand up to close the door. And neither did Pisces. Eventually, the door did get closed, by magic. But no one left the room until the next morning.
—-
The day of the challenge Ceria couldn’t eat. Everything leading up to this day seemed like a brief dream, something someone else had experienced. But what was worse was the day itself.
It was too normal. It was too quiet. It was too—
Peaceful.
It wasn’t a holiday. Classes went on like normal, and mages gathered in the corridors, gossiping. They ate in the banquet halls, and walked about as if they had not a care in the world.
Ceria skipped all her classes. She’d skipped the last eight days in truth, spending all her time with Illphres and the other mages. Now she ate breakfast with them, or rather, watched them eat with her stomach trying to shove itself back out her mouth.
“Eat something, Ceria. We can’t have you fainting when we walk out of there.”
Jurix pressed an apple into Ceria’s hand. She looked at it and turned green. He snatched it away.
“Okay, don’t eat. I’ll do it for you.”
“Watch it, Jurix. Don’t eat
too much. We’ll probably be moving around a lot.”
Bastam warned the Dullahan as he ate sparingly from a bowl filled with oats and honey. His tail was wagging back and forth faster than normal, but he appeared calm. So did the others. They were far too calm compared to Ceria, who looked as pale as a Selphid by now.
“I think I’ll pull out my stomach before we go in. I’ll be lighter that way.”
Ophelia murmured as she spooned some gravy sparingly over her breakfast of eggs and bacon. Did her hands shake a bit? She smiled at Ceria and the butterflies danced in the girl’s stomach.
“Bah. You lot don’t know anything. Dullahans know to eat a big meal the day of a battle and a small one later. Isn’t that right, Qum?”
Jurix stared across the table at the other Dullahan. He preferred to eat with his head on his shoulders, an oddity for a Dullahan. Qum nodded and spoke softly.
“Proper intake is key.”
Illphres glared at the two. She was eating sparingly as well.
“Just so long as you pass it before noon. If you think I’m fighting a battle alongside two constipated Dullahans—”
Everyone laughed. It was a rare joke—actually, not a joke since Illphres said it. But it was what they needed. Ceria tried to smile and failed. She fidgeted in her chair, and checked the position of the sun through a window. When it was right overhead, the challenge would begin. But it felt like it was frozen in the air! She looked back at Jurix as the Dullahan made a joke.
And then—it seemed to Ceria as if she remembered walking around with the others in a blur, listening to them talk. But suddenly, disconcertingly, she was standing in front of the two doors that led into the challenge room, as if the day had gone in an instant.
It was time.
The hallway was simple. Long and straight, it let people come up either stairway at both ends of the corridor. In the middle of the hallway, two double doors sat in the stone wall, the only entrance to the upper floors.
The five mages and Ceria gathered there, but not in silence. Each one was nervous now, and Ceria could sense it. But none of them gave voice to that worry. They joked instead, or stood calmly, or shooks hands or claws. They formed up in front of the door, but not before stopping to speak to Ceria of all people.