by Andur
Taking off into the air I widen my search area while I drift there. Levitation magic is the most convenient form of travelling from one point to another. Of course I could also teleport, but the general belief behind teleportation magic is that it is too dangerous to do so without a line of sight.
The magicians of this world simply haven't found an algorithm to shift the exit point to an empty area.
I watch the streets and buildings under me. My clan's ability to control mana requires one to be able to sense it. Using this special sense, everything looks like a picture with different shades of blue. The deeper the blue colour, the more mana an object possesses. Plants, animals and people look like bright blue silhouettes. Strong mages have an aura around them. I suppose that's mana which is leaking out of their bodies. Dead objects are almost white.
My watch lasts for over an hour until I finally find something of interest. I sense a single bright aura walking down a street to my east. Another strong person is following that aura, but in a very suspicious manner. Far enough away to keep out of sight, while staying close enough to keep following.
I change my direction to observe closer. If it is my target I want concrete proof before I act. So I suppose I'll wait until he strikes.
The game of cat and mouse continues for several more minutes until the following aura finally catches up to the bright one.
I stay out of sight in a height of about thirty metres. After a while both auras start moving again, though they are very close to each other and look almost like a single aura. So one of them is being carried. I descend slowly into the dark alleyway.
There is no chance to hide here, so I cut off the path of the attacker and set up an illusion to stay unnoticed for as long as possible. Then I place a clone of myself on the ground to attract my target's attention.
If I cast something big or gather too much mana from my surroundings my target might sense that something is amiss and escapes. So I wait. Revealing the enemy's identity should be good enough. The magical community is too small to hide inside it once your face is known. One would have to be an extraordinary individual to accomplish something like that.
Finally I am able to distinguish one person carrying another one on his shoulders. At least I think that it's a man. He is tall and has broad shoulders. A hood is covering his head. The victim seems to be a female student, wearing the universities robes. I got a glimpse of her robe's colour when they passed a lighted window.
He finally sees my illusion image and stops. I will my phantom forward and it walks towards the hooded figure.
The hooded man reacts without warning. He raises one hand and a red spark of energy dispels my illusion.
But I deactivated my levitation magic at the same time and dropped to the ground behind him. Covering my hand in magical energy I strike at his spine, intending to paralyse him from the legs upwards.
My fist hits something hard and I feel the skin on my knuckles rupture. The mana I concentrated on my hand bursts outwards and adds to the force of my attack. This isn't the desired effect. Is that guy wearing armour?
But he isn't completely unaffected. I hear a deep grunt while he stumbles forward and drops his victim. Wasting no time I follow and get a hand on his back, placing a curse on him. It's a simple one which drains his mana and destabilizes his control.
He doesn't give me a chance to do more. His leg shoots out at my head and I duck away, striking at his supporting leg. This time I feel flesh when my magically enhanced hand digs into his leg. He grunts in pain. I try to create a connection to drain him of his mana, feeling multiple souls inside him.
A faint memory comes to my mind. I already dealt with a person like this once. A short mental duel takes place, but this time my opponent seems to be skilled at this art. He literally sacrifices the control over one of his souls to use it as a diversion against me.
Someone else's memories flicker through my mind and I feel a fist connecting with my jaw. The contact is broken and the hooded man steps back. Both of us thrust our hands at each other.
A small blue orb and a red ball of fire shoot past each other. My blue orb hits the man at his shoulder, breaking some kind of barrier spell and blasting his arm off.
The fireball hits me directly in my chest while I force all available mana into a thin layer around my body.
An explosion lights the alleyway and I am blown away like a doll, striking a house’s wall and punching right through it. The wall crumbles above me and I feel myself being buried under bricks while dust fills my lungs.
Only my shield protects me from being crushed. I stay calm and concentrate on my surroundings. I just have to keep breathing now. If I lose control I'll be crushed! This time I'll take my time to gather mana. The mana in my environment flows towards me and I feel my power being replenished. Slowly I push the pile of bricks above me upwards until I have cleared a nice little cavity.
A bubble of mana is surrounding me now. My mother's technique may be crude, but it's still the best method for defence I know. It takes a while to set it up and you alert everyone within a hundred yards, but once it's up you are like a tank.
I walk out of the pile of bricks, parting it in front of me. Outside I find four people in a protective stance against me. My opponent is gone. I raise both of my hands and let go of the mana around me.
“I come in peace! Don't harm me!”
“Azir?” Inspector Ryland steps closer, but doesn't lower his sword. “You realize how this looks?”
What? Don't tell me that you think that I am the offender? My attention wanders towards the other three people behind the inspector. I know them.
Karsen is holding the unconscious victim from earlier in a princess carry. Talia is holding a bow with an arrow ready, but she stopped aiming at me when I called out to them. Both of them are taking military classes and they are helping Ryland as assistants. So it's not strange for them to be here.
The third person is grandmother Quarma... great. The only member of my family who hates me. She is still pointing at me with her staff.
“I just happened to stumble upon someone who was carrying that girl on his shoulders. When I approached to ask what's wrong, he attacked without a word. We fought and he sent me flying into that wall.” I point behind me.
Ryland grumbles. “Can you prove your story somehow.”
I furrow my eyebrows while I am thinking about the problem. “Ah! I wounded him! Is that good enough? That's his blood.” I point at the bloody hand which I dug into my opponent's leg. “And I blew off his arm, maybe it's still lying around somewhere.”
Finally Ryland lowers his sword a little and signals Talia to search the vicinity. I sit down on the ground while enduring my grandmother's evil stare. Ryland steps closer and takes a few samples from the blood on my hand.
Talia returns shortly afterwards with a bloody arm, holding it as far away from her as possible. I doubt that she made the right choice when she went for a military education.
Ryland grabs the arm like a holy object. “That's the closest I've been to the bastard in many, many years! Finally a clue. Remains only one question...” He stops for a moment.
“Where is the rest of him?”
20. ~Going back.~
“First acknowledge your past, then plan your future.”
-Andur the Wise.
Free City States of Nict, Capital
Azir
“So he is weakened by your curse? And he'll probably attack again because the stars are in a beneficial constellation to practice summoning magic?” Ryland looks at me with a doubtful expression while he is resting his legs on the table in his office.
The room is fairly large with a table for Ryland and a couch in the middle of the room. The walls are littered with shelves. All of them are filled with documents of one sort or the other.
I nod eagerly while I survey the room. Quarma is sitting in a comfy chair, wearing a grumpy expression. It seems like she is assisting Ryland. According to what I heard
she has a long history with hunting black magicians.
Karsen and Talia are guarding the door while leaning against the walls, looking bored.
“That raises the question why you know so much about summoning magic?” Ryland looks at me with a raised eyebrow.
“Errm.” I scratch my chest. “I like reading books about summoning magic.”
“Books? Where did you get them?” Ryland squints his eyes.
“The library!” That's a good excuse. The library has tons of books. They don't even know what they have in their hands for the most part, since nobody understands the books.
“The library has books about a forbidden art?” Ryland keeps digging.
“I think you can let this go Ryland. He is my daughter's son after all. Every clan has at least some knowledge about the forbidden arts. You can't fight what you don't understand.” Quarma grumbles from her chair.
Ooh. Thanks old hag, though I am quite sure that she did it for the clan and not for me.
In that moment the door flies open and Stella rushes in. “Azir? Are you okay?”
I turn around and smile. “No injuries. I just ran into a dark magician. Why are you even here? It's late at night, you should be at home.”
“The entire campus is talking about the explosion! And that you were involved.” Stella waves her arms.
Another person enters the room. “Brother!”
I sigh as my little sister flies to my side and hugs me. She entered the university herself recently and she matured quite a lot. She is still a head shorter than me and wears her light blue hair as a braid. Her horns became similar to an elongated turned omega, running backwards above her head. They are a little curved too.
If it wasn't for the horns I would think that she is a younger version of my mother. In a few years she'll have the same beautiful, but sharp eyes as her. Though at this point she still looks a little childish.
“It's okay, nothing happened. You can let go.” I try to get her off, but she doesn't let go. My mother created a monster when she ordered her to keep an eye on me.
“But I wouldn't know what to do if something happened to my brother! Mother would kill me.” Finally, she lets go of me. “Grandmother! What happened? How could you let my brother get involved.”
The old granny doesn't answer and smiles instead.
I stand up. “Okay? How about we all go home for today? The search is on and we can only wait for its conclusion anyway?”
As if to mock my words the whole room vibrates a little. It's like a minor earthquake, so I doubt that another explosion is the reason. “Okay? I take that back. Undo the earthquake, I want to go to sleep.”
But my prayer isn't heard. A moment later the door opens and one of Ryland's helpers steps inside. “The floor of one of the auditoriums caved in!”
Ryland stands up. “Casualties?”
He runs out of the room, Karsen and Talia on his heels. Quarma follows with my little sister right behind her. Stella follows them too.
I am left behind alone. “Guys? Isn't something on that scale the army's job?”
★
Goodbye, Professor Agate Eddin. I'll keep you in my memory.
Our group was led to the room where I should have had my lesson about artifice. But instead of the auditorium, there is just a big deep hole where the floor should be.
“There should have been thirty four students in that lesson.” One of Ryland's subordinates supplies him with information while others light up the hole with spells, but there is just a pitch black tunnel. It leads down into the earth at a steep angle. There are about thirty of Ryland's agents searching the area.
“Thirty three! I am here!” I lift a helping hand to correct the guy who informed Ryland.
“This is big. To think that they would take such measures.” Ryland grumbles and jumps down into the hole.
Quarma follows him with a bitter expression. “It seems like they were using the old basement vaults of the university. I thought they were properly sealed!”
“Twenty with me! The rest guards the entrance!” Ryland calls up from down in the pit. Fourteen women and six men follow his command without question. Even Karsen and Talia jump down into the hole.
My little sister steps forward too and I grab her at her tail. “Hey! Hey! What do you think you are doing?”
“Following the law. If someone uses magic for dark purposes, everyone who can has to stop them. Since we are members of one of the great clans, we can't hide from this responsibility.” She slaps my hand away and jumps down into the pit.
Stella smirks at me. “A chance to gain fame!” She follows them.
I watch them disappear in the dark hole, which leads down into the earth. Memories of dark tunnels and confined spaces well up inside my mind. “Aw! I hate this idea. Can't we wait for them to come out?”
Fighting against my instinct, I jump down into the hole and follow them through the tunnel. It narrows after a few feet to a width of about three metres. I summon a light globe and make haste to catch up to the leading group.
At first the walls of the tunnel look like something clawed its way through the stone, but then we reach a section which is stabilized with bricks. “What's this. Something like this was under the university?”
“The catacombs and vaults under the university are from the time of the Empire. The university buildings were simply built above them. But to my knowledge all of them should have been collapsed or sealed.” Ryland explains.
I don't like this at all. “Great. Please dismiss the guy who brought you that information for collaboration with the enemy. I hate having something like a cave system under my feet.”
Stella snickers in front of me. “Today I've learned something new. Azir dislikes confined spaces.”
“Shut up. There is no way to tell what we'll encounter down here. It would be great if it doesn't know in advance that we are coming.” Quarma complains and the group goes silent.
We have quite a few people down here. I take a look back down the tunnel and then forward again. If something bad happens it'll be hard to retreat. But there is nothing we can do against that, we might need the fighting power for what awaits us.
And who says that there is just one enemy?
A few minutes later we encounter a small cavern with three possible tunnels to choose from. Ryland stops and curses.
Quarma looks down each tunnel. “We have to split our group to search faster. There is no way to tell what could happen to the captured people if we take too long.”
Splitting up inside a tunnel system is a shitty idea. How often can you do it until your fighting strength is reduced to nothing? Now we would need to divide into three groups. What if those groups have to split up another time?
“It's the one to the left.” All eyes turn towards me. Sorry for having experience with tunnels and cave systems. Don't look at me like that. “It's the only one which was used recently. Can't you see the dust particles moving in the air?”
I focus the light which is emitted by my light globe into three tight beams and point them down the tunnels. Only the tunnel which I indicated is filled with dust particles. The air in the others is clean after a few feet.
Quarma squints her eyes while glaring at me. “How did you see that?”
I point at my eyes. “Mana Sense.” A convenient lie. It's simply long honed experience in judging the air movement against one's skin.
Ryland isn't that suspicious of me and enters the tunnel I pointed out. We follow and wander deeper into the earth.
I keep staying on guard, concentrating all my senses forward and even using my mana sense to scout the tunnel ahead of us.
After a few minutes of walking I sense someone in the tunnel ahead of us. “Stop.”
Quarma curses. “What now?”
“A guard. Fifty metres ahead of us.” I point into the darkness ahead of us.
“I can't sense anything.” My sister complains.
“Then you don't have the ran
ge. He is there. I'll go and take him out. His aura doesn't seem that strong. Give me a little time and follow.” I cast a physical enhancement spell and take off before anyone can stop me.
None of them is stupid enough to call after me. My decision might seem rash, but there is something amiss about that guard. Something that seems strangely familiar, though I can't place it.
I run down the corridor while being as silent as possible and dispel my light globe. If my hunch is right, then speed is of the essence. Increasing my speed as I am closing in, I cast and illusion spell, diving the area in front of me in darkness. I am affecting myself too, but I don't need my vision.
A pale figure appears in the darkness in front of me. But I don't take my time to comprehend what I see and strike the enemy's throat. A quiet gurgle escapes the pale figure and I image my mana forming a dagger in my hand. It works perfectly fine and I jab it into my opponents chest. He goes down without another sound.
Staring into the tunnel ahead of me I keep my silence. But there is nothing. No movement. No sound. After several long moments I allow my eyes to wander down to my opponent and recast the light globe.
A naked pale white figure is under me. The earlobes are long, reaching down to its shoulders. Huge dead eyes are staring at me, still filled with hatred. Countless scars cover its body, forming strange nonsensical runes and symbols. It looks skinny and starved, but I know that they all look like that. It's at least one head larger than me. Ah, how long has it been since I saw one of their kind?
“What's that thing? A demon?”
“There is a light ahead of us.”
I turn around and see that the others caught up. “We have to go and stop whatever they are doing.” I let go of the dagger which was formed by my mana and it disperses like it never existed.
We continue on our path until we enter a big round room. There are no other exits, but there are more of the white figures, facing an altar with a red portal above it. It seems like they are praying.
A one handed man raises a head above the altar and mutters something. Probably a formula to keep the portal open. I know that head, I think it belongs to a girl from the artifice course.