“What did Master Hustrai think?”
“I do not know. Master Hustrai did not wish to leave the room and I did not wish to discuss matters in front of … the young one.”
Glancing past the mage’s shoulder, Arrow saw the rune for confusion on the door, disguising their conversation from the room’s occupants, alongside another rune which allowed the mage to monitor what was going on.
“And how did Master Hustrai raise the alarm without the surjusi destroying him?”
“He sent his class away early, with one of them carrying a note for the nearest Teaching Mistress, and White Guard patrol.” The mage’s mouth tightened. “The Teaching Mistress panicked, triggering the closing protocol. White Guard are, naturally, patrolling safely outside.” Something in the heavily sarcastic tone was almost familiar, even though Arrow knew she had never met this mage before. Despite the circumstances, she bit the inside of her lip to stop a smile showing. He clearly believed that there had been an overreaction; offending the White Guard was simply an extra.
“We have no jurisdiction inside the Academy.” Kallish’s voice, cool and displeased, came across Arrow’s shoulder. “The Preceptor has made that very clear.”
“He is not here,” the mage returned, then closed his lips together firmly. Arrow had a jolt, seeing that very familiar expression. If she had a mirror she would see it on her face often. That of holding back hasty words.
“But I am. Will you allow me access?”
“Just you,” the mage’s glance flicked past her for a moment, jaw set, “it is too dangerous.”
“Thank you.”
The mage stepped aside and, ignoring protests from her companions, Arrow stepped through the door.
The first thing she noticed was the smell. The Potions classroom was always pungent, but the clean scents of Erith herbs and brewing magic were now undercut by an all too familiar sticky stench.
The classroom was laid out in rows of heavy, waist-high, workbenches, each providing burners and space to work, stools almost always pushed to the walls, so the students could stand, the Potions Master’s own workbench set higher at one end of the room. Arrow had enjoyed classes here. Master Hustrai had been fair, not caring if his students were nobility or commonfolk among the Erith, only caring that they paid attention and learned their lessons.
The room was crawling with spells. Every workbench had a hastily-written containment spell upon it, the writing large and untidy, and some of the benches had been moved to create a bare centre to the room. One of the stools had been placed there, inside another containment circle, and on that stool sat Gesser vo Regresan. The Potions Master himself was settled at his own workbench, teaching robes covered in chalk dust, hands resting on the bench in front of him, a pile of chalk next to him.
“Master Hustrai, good day to you.” Arrow kept her voice as even as possible.
“Arrow.” His voice was flat, exhausted, and Arrow wondered how much energy he had used in setting the containment spells. And why he had not used one of his restorative potions.
A few steps into the room, glass crunched under her feet and she had her answer about the potions. The vast, glass-fronted cabinet which took up almost the entire length of one wall of the room and normally contained samples of both student and Master work, had been destroyed. The wooden frame was shattered, every vial inside smashed, a great pool of liquid seeping into the floor.
“I was removing anything that could be used against us,” the Master told her, voice rasping.
“I see.”
Arrow walked a few more paces, careful to avoid the containment spells. Even with the spells the air was full of the static charge of surjusi. Almost as powerful as the one in Hallveran. Dread filled her, wondering what she would face.
The creature that had once been Gesser vo Regresan raised its head and she caught her breath. There was nothing left of the arrogant, young, Erith lord. An ancient creature gazed out of his face. Eyes black from lid to lid, the creature followed her movement, lips curled back in a sneer.
“Little mageling. Come to witness my rebirth?”
“And who are you?”
A harsh, grating sound that should not come from any Erith mouth. The thing was laughing.
“Not so stupid. Call me … Marianne. Marianne Stillwater.”
Arrow stilled, ice slicking across her body.
“No.”
“No?”
“That is a lie.”
“Is it?” The lips curved. A stupid challenge. It was a lie. Marianne Stillwater was long since dead and would never be reborn as this thing.
“Why are you here?”
The creature was silent, unblinking eyes tracking every move she made as she came to a halt near Master Hustrai’s desk.
“What first made you suspicious, sir?” she asked, keeping most of her focus on the thing.
“He smiled.” The Master’s voice was raw. “And it was not Gesser.”
She turned and looked long at the Master, the weariness dragging his face, the clenched hands, and the unexpected sheen of tears in his eyes, and drew conclusions.
“He does not deserve your regard,” she said hoarsely.
“No. He does not. But,” the Master sighed, and met her eyes, amber dulled in his own, a rare moment of honesty, “we cannot help who we love.”
“No. We cannot.” Arrow felt the weight on her shoulders again. As little as she might like Gesser, and as little as she wished to obey a command from Gret vo Regresan ever again in her life, she could not ignore the Master’s pain. “Let me see what I can do.”
“Nothing.” The Master swallowed, and one tear escaped.
“How touching.” The grating voice raised hairs on the back of Arrow’s neck.
“We will see.” Arrow made a slow, careful circuit around the seated thing, second sight engaged. The blackness was nearly blinding. It had not had long to establish itself here, but the surjusi was nearly as powerful as the possessed Erith lord she had met in the shadows. Nearly but not quite. It had a complete hold of the young lord. A lord who, restored to his own mind, would sneer away Master Hustrai’s regard without a single thought.
And a lord who, it seemed, had willingly called a surjusi into his person. She could see no broken fragments of wards, no signs of violence, nothing to suggest that the young fool had fought back or resisted the possession.
Possessed, willingly, but not owning the necessary knowledge to call forth a demon and anchor it to him. Far too junior in his magical learning for that. He had had help.
Her suspicion was confirmed a moment later when spotted a near-invisible layer of spells in the darkness, with a familiar signature. The rogue magician. The one with a fondness for unclean magic and consorting with surjusi. How had Gesser encountered that magician?
“So, you are an acolyte,” she murmured.
“I serve no one.”
“I do not believe you.”
“It does not matter. You will not be alive long.”
“Do you think you can kill me?”
“I know I can.”
The darkness surged up in second sight, swallowing all of Master Hustrai’s containment spells, blackening the classroom floor.
“Get out! Now!” Arrow told the Potions Master, drawing her sword as she yelled. Her wards flared up, bright silver shadowing the dark.
“A spirit sword?” The creature was angry, and mocking. “You think that can harm me?”
For answer she gave him the words of the banishment spell, setting her will behind it. “You will have no purchase in this place. Your anchor will be torn up. Your substance will be destroyed. Your soul will return to the place from whence it came. This I declare. This I bind. This I put my will to.”
At the first repetition the creature growled, long and low, and despite the bright silver weapon she held, Arrow shivered head to toe. She never wanted to hear that noise again.
Gesser’s body rose up from the stool, movements oddly uncoordinated, as t
hough the spirit had not yet gained full control. Or, perhaps, it had little patience with the constraints of Erith bodies. It grabbed one of the workbenches in one hand and tried to hurl it across the room towards Arrow, a roar of anger following its failure.
Arrow found one of her feet stuck to the floor and realised she had stepped in the seeping mass of potions. Now the creature was out of its containment, it could use the discarded spells.
A quick, spoken, spell, and she touched the end of her sword to the sticky mass, setting it on fire, dragging her foot out of the mess as it exploded into flames, heat searing her skin, sending her scurrying away, and nearly into the hard, wooden frame of a stool, thrown across the room, followed swiftly by Gesser’s body.
She was on her third repetition of the banishment spell now, and the creature was showing no signs of being affected. Silently damning Serran vo Liathius for his blithe assurance that the spell would work with three repetitions, she was about to start another round of three when her whole body seized, mind overwhelmed by flickering, confusing images. That damned book. The one from the Preceptor’s study.
The knowledge unfolded too quickly for her to understand it, but something in her had grasped enough knowledge to act. Arrow’s arm turned, the sword blade held flat, crossways in front of her body, and she brushed her hand across the blade, leaving a streak of blood on the silver. A blade which should not cut flesh somehow became solid.
“A new trick?” The voice sneered.
She did not bother to answer, stepping towards the thing, arm moving to slash the bright edge of her sword through the blackness in the second world. The creature howled and rushed towards her. Arrow stuck out one foot and tripped the ungainly thing, sending Gesser’s body down to the blackened floorboards, following by thrusting the sword through his middle, shouting a final repetition of the banishment spell.
Her skin was scorched as the blackness erupted, bursting out of Gesser in a violent wave. The body on the ground writhed and screamed, sound changing gradually from the unearthly roar of the creature to the cry of agony from an Erith pinned to the floor by a large sword.
Arrow knelt by the lord, breathing hard. A short, brutal, fight and she was out of energy.
“What have you done?” The cry of dismay was from Master Hustrai who, of course, had not left the room.
“Dispatched the surjusi,” Arrow said, keeping her eyes on Gesser.
“You killed him.”
“He is alive. He needs a healer.”
“You killed him!” The overwrought Master surged towards Arrow and, too late, she saw the long, curving knife in his hand. She put up an arm to protect her face, wards flaring, waiting for the blow to fall.
It never did. She looked up a moment later to find Hustrai on the ground, stunned expression on his face, a stool pinning him to the ground.
Glancing across the room door she saw the war mage in the open door, hands raised, another stool hovering in the air before him.
“My thanks,” she said. He nodded, and the stool slid back to the floor to join its fellows.
“The wards are down. Healers are on their way,” he told her, coming into the room, eyes widening as he looked around.
Arrow followed his gaze and sighed. The room was destroyed, from the blackened floorboards to the shattered workbenches.
“I did not break the potions cabinet,” she said defensively. The mage’s mouth kicked up in a smile.
“Were you responsible for everything else?”
“Well, the surjusi was.”
“Impressive.” Kallish stepped through the door, one hand on a weapon, but otherwise apparently relaxed. The warrior’s mouth twitched as she looked up at the ceiling. Arrow looked up and groaned, heat scoring her face again as Kester followed Kallish into the room, eyes following the warrior’s gaze. The ceiling was a scorched mess, arcs of soot showing where the potions fire had cast off. And most of the room’s surfaces were covered with the fine, dark ash she associated with surjusi banishment.
“If I was not already exiled, I certainly would be now,” she muttered to herself, and turned her attention back to Gesser as he groaned. “Stay still, idiot. You have a sword through your middle.”
“A-arrow? What … Ow!” He tried to curl around his wound, only to be held by Kallish’s boot on one shoulder.
“A clean wound,” Kallish noted. “Well done, mage.”
“Thank you.” Arrow felt her face heat up. That had been pure luck as she had no idea what she should have been aiming for.
“Clean? A clean wound?” Gesser shrieked. “You stabbed me, you … runt. You will be punished for this!”
“Oh, do be quiet.” Kester was not amused.
“What?”
“You allowed a surjusi to be planted in you,” Arrow said, catching and holding the lord’s eyes with her gaze, silver prominent. “Why?”
“What?”
“Answer.” Arrow put her will behind her words.
“I … wanted … power. Tired of … being overlooked.” The words came out unwillingly, the lord’s face twisted in hate.
“And who helped you?”
“No-one.” He giggled. An odd reaction that had Arrow tightening her grip on her blade. He hissed with pain as the sword moved.
“Careful,” she told the others, “he may not be clean yet.”
“I cannot sense any taint,” Kallish commented, but drew a sword and stayed close, battle ward shimmering around her.
“He is not tainted,” the unnamed war mage said, hands up before him, flicker of power across his fingers showing Arrow he had spells prepared, ready for combat. The mage tilted his head. “But there is something else.”
“Let me up!” Hustrai wriggled on the ground. The mage sighed and moved fractionally, ready to assist the Master.
“No!” Arrow rose, pulling her sword up with her, and leaping across Gesser’s body. Hustrai got to his feet all on his own, a familiar black coating his eyes.
“You are stronger than we expected.” The Master’s lips moved, forming words that grated Arrow’s ears. “We will not forget that.” And the Master’s hand moved, drawing the long dagger swiftly across his throat.
Arrow’s cry was drowned in the others’. Master Hustrai’s lifeblood soared out of his body, pouring across the ceiling. The spray covered Arrow, fine drops a mist that fizzed against wards as the mage, Kallish, and Kester moved towards the Master, voicing a collective, wordless protest. Far too late.
“No.” Arrow’s soft denial was lost in the dull thump as the Master’s body hit the floor, twitching slightly as the last of his blood flowed out, forming a pool around him. She stood, unable to move, sword held ready, watching as Kallish knelt by the Master, assessed his wound, then shook her head.
“What have you done, you stupid bitch.” Gesser’s thin voice called her attention back and she glanced over her shoulder to find the lord clutching his middle, trying to stop his blood from seeping out. She stared down at her sword, seeing the silver length solid and real in the first world, and shuddered.
“Healers are on their way,” Kallish said grimly, rising to her feet, “and if you can still speak, you will live, young lord.”
Arrow found a scrap of cloth in her pockets and cleaned the silver length with absent, mechanical movements, fingers trembling, sheathing the sword across her back before going to kneel beside Hustrai.
“He did not deserve this,” she murmured, looking up when a shadow appeared on the other side of the body. The war mage was also kneeling.
“No, he did not. He was a kind soul.”
Arrow half-reached out, wanting to close the Master’s eyes, still open and staring at the ceiling, but checked herself. There would be questions. And it was not her place to ready him for his next journey.
“A spirit sword, young mage?” the other mage asked.
“Yes.” She straightened to her feet, suddenly weary and sick to her stomach. The short, brutal fight had barely tapped her power and yet s
he wanted to curl under covers and sleep for a month. Hustrai’s body lay as an accusation on the floor. Another failure.
“One has not been forged for over a hundred years.”
“So I have been told.” She fought to keep her voice even.
“But you are not a war mage, young thing.”
“The Academy and Preceptor would disagree.” She was too tired. Covered in the black ash of surjusi and Hustrai’s blood. She had no time for whatever game the mage was playing so soon after the surjusi’s taunting.
“A shadow-walker pays a high price for battle magic,” the other mage said, voice sounding distant, “particularly where there is death. Have you never wondered why you carry the stain of death so long?”
Attention caught, she stared at the unfamiliar face for a long moment. He bore her gaze with no sign of discomfort, folding his hands in his sleeves, settled comfortably on his feet, prepared to wait. There was no disdain in his face or voice. He seemed genuinely curious.
“Who are you?”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
“Gilean!” Orlis’ voice, delighted, full of bright, vibrant life, lit the room. The mage looked across to the door, and the heat of his expression made Arrow look away. The mage and Orlis exchanged a quick embrace, unabashed in their affection.
“Gilean vo Presien. I am honoured.” She made a bow.
“As I am I.”
“Do you deliberately write badly for the Preceptor’s letters?” Arrow asked, the first thing that came to her mind that did not involve blood or surjusi or the destruction of the classroom. The mage laughed, eyes lighting with mischief.
“Not entirely.”
“We only find time to write on journeys,” Orlis explained, shoulder to shoulder with Gilean, “and often on horseback.”
Arrow could not suppress a bark of laughter.
“Gilean,” Kester said carefully, making a respectful small bow.
Revealed: The Taellaneth - Book 2 Page 27