by Andrew Rowe
Keras laughed. “Sure.” He sat back down. “Go get your sword, Corin.”
I glanced at Marissa, and she nodded.
I went and picked up Selys-Lyann. Keras let me walk back to Marissa without interfering.
I inspected the blade. True to what Keras had claimed, it looked undamaged. A layer of ice had already spread back across the blade’s surface.
“You could go a little harder on us this time,” Marissa offered. “You weren’t attacking at all.”
She was right, I realized — aside from that tiny ball of flame right at the beginning, he was fighting purely defensively. And given how easily I’d cut through the fire, that attack had probably been little more than a distraction...maybe that was when he’d altered the stone in the floor.
“I don’t think you’re ready for me to fight back.” Keras watched us with a taciturn expression.
“We managed to hit you a few times there,” I pointed out. “And I managed to fight against Derek for a while. He seems to hold his own against you.”
Keras shook his head. “I don’t mean to imply either of you is a weak fighter. Not by any stretch of the imagination. Either of you would have been a good fight for me when I was your own age. But I think you’re missing a couple important points.”
Marissa lowered her guard for a moment to fold her arms. “Whatcha mean?”
“One important thing to learn is that unless someone is highly specialized in defense, their defensive capabilities don’t improve as much as their offensive capabilities do.”
Keras folded his hands. “A Sunstone level attuned has six times more mana than a Carnelian. That means, in theory, they can cast an attack spell that’s six times stronger. But their shroud doesn’t block six times more damage, and they don’t necessarily get any faster.
“There are ways around this, to some degree. One of Derek’s contracts is air based, and increases his speed. Another of his contracts is stone-based, and increases his physical durability. But as an Emerald, he has hundreds of times more mana than you do — and he doesn’t have hundreds of times your speed or resilience.
“The same is going to be true for most high-powered fighters. Even an ordinary human could knock an Emerald level Enchanter out with a swift blow from inside their shroud, unless that Enchanter has spells or items that give them additional defense.”
I understood all that, even if I’d never heard it put in those exact terms. It was the reason Jin was able to knock Orden out with a surprise attack, for example. “Okay, sure, but Derek was attacking us during our fight, and we held out okay.”
“I talked to Derek about that fight. Orden instructed him not to kill any of you. That particular command gave him some flexibility to hold back when fighting you.”
That was no surprise — I could tell Derek was trying to resist the commands, he just wasn’t able to break free.
Keras continued. “Moreover, she ordered him not to summon the elementals from his weapons. Presumably, she was worried that if he summoned them, they’d realize he was controlled and find a way to break him free. If he was trying to fight you at anything close to his full strength, that would have gone very differently.”
I furrowed my brow. “That makes sense, but he was still attacking to subdue us. I’m sure you could hold back somewhat, too.”
“I could, but I still might hurt you. Derek is a fairly balanced fighter, since he’s assigned his contracts to enhance his fighting in a number of different ways. I’m specialized in offensive melee combat. I don’t have a traditional shroud, so I don’t have the kind of defensive strength that someone like Derek does. But if I was attacking with any degree of seriousness...” He shook his head. “You wouldn’t like the result.”
Marissa put her arms back up. “Aw, c’mon. It’s no fun if you don’t fight back. Just for a minute?”
Keras narrowed his eyes. “Corin, do you agree with Marissa?”
I nodded. I knew that Keras was probably the most dangerous person I’d ever fought against, but I wanted to see how much of a gap there was in our fighting ability. It would be useful to see just how far I had to grow. “Just try not to snap us like twigs.”
He grinned. “I’ll hold back as much as I can. Are you two ready?”
Marissa shifted to a ready stance. “You bet.”
I raised Selys-Lyann defensively, moving close enough to Marissa that we were nearly touching. It would be easier for us to guard for each other that way. “Ready.”
Keras bowed his head. “Begin.”
One moment, Keras was still sitting several feet away.
The next, there was a sword at my throat.
And Marissa’s throat, because we were next to each other, and the blade was pretty long.
I’d say that I froze, but that would have implied I ever had a chance to move in the first place.
Keras removed the sword slowly, deliberately, and slipped it back into the scabbard at his side.
I’d known he could move fast when he wanted to. He’d been a blur during some of the fight against Derek, and even faster when he’d cut one of Katashi’s attacks out of the air.
But I hadn’t experienced being on the receiving end of it.
It was...not a pleasant experience.
Humbling would have been one way to put it. In that regard, Keras was right. He’d shown us just how absurd the idea of even the two of us fighting against him was.
There was more to it, though.
There was a sort of dysphoria in my mind, a degree of disbelief that anyone could move that quickly. Even if he had magic to make him move faster physically, how could he perceive that much faster than I could?
It wasn’t just that he teleported — he had to be able to stand up, move his arms to a completely different position, pick up the sword from the ground, unsheathe it, and then move to put his sword at our necks.
Did he experience the passage of time in a different way than I did when he was moving like that? Or perhaps permanently? The latter was an even more daunting concept, because it implied a way of seeing the world that was completely alien.
Maybe they were good questions, but all I managed to stammer was, “How?”
Keras leveled his now-sheathed sword in front of him. “A fair question, but we’re not done yet.”
As if to punctuate the point, Marissa swung a fist, impacting the scabbard and battering it out of the way. She tried to follow-up on the opening, but he kicked her in the chest, doubling her over.
I swung Selys-Lyann downward, but it was a feint. As he stepped back and avoided it, I tried something new.
The ring of jumping used transference mana — the same type I used for enchanting all the time. I could feel it, and, to some extent, control it.
I activated the ring again, but I didn’t let the mana seep into my legs and launch me forward.
I refocused it, channeling it all into my left arm as I swung my fist at him.
My own arm’s motion was a blur, too fast for me to follow.
It had worked.
Keras grabbed my fist out of the air anyway.
“Interesting.” He held my fist in an iron grip with a single hand, dodging effortlessly as I used my main hand to swing Selys-Lyann at him again. “Didn’t think you’d be able to use the ring with that level of flexibility yet, but it was a good idea. You would have hit a slower opponent hard.” He smiled. “Unfortunately, you asked for me to put in more effort, and I have no intention of letting either of you hit me again.”
Keras released my hand — then flicked it with a finger, like he had with the fireball earlier.
My hand flew back, smashed by sudden kinetic force. The impact spun me, throwing off my next attempt at a swing.
Marissa coughed, straightened, and flung her right arm out to her side.
Her arm was encased in a blade-like aura, like the one Keras had shown us earlier. It looked considerably thicker than when she’d tried to use it in our dueling test a few days earlier.
S
he swung the aura blade at him. He raised the scabbard to block — and the aura cut right through it, and the sword within.
Keras dropped the weapon with a surprised look, stepping back just before the aura connected with his body. “Not bad. You’ve been practicing without me.”
Marissa grinned. “Every night.” Then she lunged at him.
Keras side-stepped, blurred, and then he was behind her. I tried to step forward, but he moved too fast. He brought an open hand down on Marissa’s back. The impact blasted her downward and into the ground, cracking the stone floor.
I backed off rather than lunging, swinging at the air and producing another crescent of ice. Keras had admitted to being a close combat specialist, so my best bet was to keep him at a distance.
Keras stepped out of the way of the crescent, forming a ball of flame between his hands. I didn’t like the look of that, so I activated the ring again, blasting myself backward, almost to the opposite side of the roof.
He threw the sphere at Marissa, while she was still pulling herself off the floor. It was a direct hit. Her phoenix sigil’s barrier flickered and shattered on impact, but her shroud absorbed most of the rest of the blast.
Most, but not all. The back of her shirt had a hole burned in it, and the skin beneath was reddened and burned. I heard her let out a pained shout.
“Mara—” I started, but then Keras was in front of me. I took another swing at him out of instinct, but he just batted it to the side with an open hand.
I grabbed him with my other hand and activated the ring of jumping, focusing the energy into him.
The blast shot him backward, almost off the roof.
Almost.
He stopped right at the edge, shaking his head. “Not bad, Corin. But not enough.”
Marissa hissed, tensed her hands, and pushed herself to her feet. She extended her right arm, her shroud sharpening back into a blade shape. “Again.”
Keras raised an eyebrow at her. “...Really? You still want to fight?”
She balled her hands into fists. “I’m just getting started.”
The swordsman laughed, shaking his head. “You don’t know when to give up.” He took a few steps closer, then sat back down. “Let’s start over.”
I walked back over to Marissa, shrugging off my uniform coat and putting it over her shoulders. She winced as she slipped it on, so I reached into my bag to retrieve the ring of regeneration and handed it to her. She put it on, activated it, and nodded in thanks.
“Let me see your phoenix sigil for a minute.”
She turned toward me so I could grab the sigil. With my new attunement, it only took me a few seconds to recharge, although I could feel my hand burning from the effort of using that much mana that quickly.
“Thanks.” She turned back to Keras. “Ready.”
I stretched, then readied myself again. “Ready as well.”
We fought for hours, and I felt like we were getting just a little bit better at keeping up with Keras toward the end, especially when we attacked together.
Our teamwork was getting better in general, too. Toward the end, we managed to block his attacks for each other once or twice, like I’d intended from the beginning.
I never landed another hit on him, though. Neither did Marissa. Not after he’d decided to take us more seriously.
All in all, though?
It was the first time I could remember enjoying combat training in a long, long time.
***
I had Understanding Attunements class that day, and I did go to the class, but I barely paid attention at first. It when Professor Conway introduced a guest that I regained my focus.
“This is Professor Yang, a visiting teacher from Alaris Academy in Caelford. While visiting, he’s agreed to help give you an early introduction to a particularly difficult task — resisting mental compulsion spells.”
Now that got me interested. Professor Yang was tall and heavy, with a pair of thick glasses and an uncovered attunement on his right hand.
It was a Controller attunement. I’d memorized the basic version of that particular mark after I’d seen how devastating Orden’s Controller abilities were. I wanted to be certain I could identify one early if I ever saw one again.
From the look of his particular attunement, I believed he was a Citrine — but it was hard to tell. There were a number of variations of each individual attunement, even at any given level. I’d learned to pick out the main symbol early in life, but I was just learning about all the types of variations that were possible this year.
Attunement levels each added an additional stroke to the rune’s shape, but the location and shape of the stroke varied. We were scheduled to discuss mark variations in the second half of the year, so I hadn’t spent a lot of time studying it yet.
“Professor Conway, thank you for having me. Students, good day to you all.” Professor Yang had a smooth voice without much of a Caelish accent. “I believe Professor Conway has already introduced you to the basics of my attunement, the Controller, but I’d like you to humor me and listen for a few moments before we begin the practical portion of the lesson. Some of this may be review.”
Most of this class had been review for me in general, but I usually didn’t mind. While I’d learned most of the basics about magic as a child, some of the elementary lessons had faded over time, and other things I’d been taught as a youth had been “simplified” to the point of inaccuracy.
The higher degree of accurate information in classes like this one and my general magic theory class made them useful to attend, even if they did go over a lot of information I already knew.
I imagined that classes like these were even more important for people like Marissa, who might not have had much of a formal education at all up to this point in her life.
Professor Yang continued an overview of his attunement. It was, as he said, mostly the basics. I paid more attention once he got into information that was new. “Most Controller spells involve working with perception mana. Perception mana influences how you experience the world, whereas mental mana is used for memory and analyzing information you already know.”
Professor Yang put a finger against his forehead. “While there is a considerable amount of overlap between the two, perception mana is primarily tied to your emotions, senses, and instincts, whereas mental mana is more about reasoning and conscious decision making.
“Both can be used for information gathering purposes; a perception improving spell might help you see or hear better, whereas a mental improvement spell might allow you to process something you couldn’t otherwise, such as improving your mathematical abilities.”
He gestured to the class. “Your brain uses both types of mana, and thus, they work in tandem. This means that some mental spells might still impact how you perceive the world, and some perception spells might still alter how you analyze situations. This is how Controllers influence you. Stand up.”
We all stood up.
It took me a moment to realize that I hadn’t intended to stand up.
That was really unsettling.
“While I’ve been speaking, I’ve been filling the classroom with perception mana. Unless you—”
No. This is unacceptable.
I didn’t like being controlled.
My mind was everything. It was the definition of who I was as a person. I certainly wasn’t going to let someone else play with it.
I sat back down.
Professor Yang turned toward me. “Ah, you discovered a weakness in this style of magic already. I did not explicitly command any of you to remain standing. There’s a little bit of my own perception mana influencing each of your own minds right now, making you vulnerable to my commands. This can be extremely subtle, but once you realize you are being influenced, you can attempt to resist.
He gestured at me. “This student found a basic loophole in my command. Not only can this approach do the obvious and help you avoid committing acts you do not wish to, but it
also stimulates your mental mana — and your mental mana is a natural defense against compulsion magic.”
“Perception mana and mental mana work together, but they’re opposites; they cancel each other out much in the same way that fire and water do. You can also attempt to use other perception spells to counter existing ones, but I suspect most of you do not have access to those. Thus, I recommend this simple task. If you apply your mental mana to the purpose of freeing yourself, eventually, you may succeed.”
I was already working on that.
Now that I knew I was under a compulsion spell, I was actively converting some of my mana in my body into mental mana, then trying to cycle that through to my mind. That was a slow process, though, and I couldn’t identify the perception mana to try to target it directly.
Fortunately, I knew what the teacher was saying was accurate; I’d already managed to do something similar with the sleep spell that Sheridan had used. I could probably free myself from the spell like this...eventually.
This was a much subtler effect, though, which raised a concern.
How would I know that I was free, if I hadn’t detected the spell in the first place?
That was unsettling.
“Let’s see if you can actively resist, now that you know you’re compelled. Everyone, sit back down.”
I felt urge to comply, but I was already sitting, so it didn’t have any real impact.
No one managed to resist just yet. We were all sitting now.
“Stand up.”
We all stood.
I clenched my fists. I did not like this exercise.
I could see a few other people nearby who were taking other actions to try to free themselves. I saw someone pinching himself, hoping pain would overwhelm the instincts.
Someone else was covering her ears. That was the best plan I’d seen so far, but when the next command came...
“Sit down.”
She sat, too. Either she had still heard him with her ears covered, or the mana was activating and sending the command regardless of whether or not she heard the voice.
I was cycling my mana as quickly as I could, but the effect didn’t seem to be getting any weaker. In fact, it seemed to be getting harder to resist, not easier.