Maksohm walked in silence for a moment before he finally stated, “I don’t know how to react to Bannen.”
I blinked. “In what way?”
“As a familiar. Speaking as someone who had a familiar, I find his interactions with you a little puzzling and strange. I’m sure part of it is because he’s human—he doesn’t have the inherent submissiveness to him that an animal would. He’s far more vocal than a sentient magical artifact would be, like Vee’s staff. He has all of the independence, emotions, and history that a man should and yet he’s still your familiar. He acts like your familiar, has the instincts of one, but still has the ability to argue and disagree with you. It’s a contradiction, and I never quite know how he’s going to react to a situation.”
I tried to see things from his perspective and found that I could, a little. “So when he blew up this morning, you were afraid…of what? That I had finally pushed him too far and he’d leave me?”
“It doesn’t sound quite right when you put it like that, but yes, I think that’s exactly what I was afraid of. You two act more like friends and partners most of the time. There’s moments that I honestly forget he is your familiar. Up until something happens, like this morning, and then his reaction is all familiar.”
What an interesting take on the situation. He was even half-right. “I’ve found the easiest thing to do is to treat him like he’s my friend and partner—which he certainly is—with the protective instincts of a familiar.”
We left the building, the sun shining a little too warmly on my face, and I had to pause and wait for my eyes to adjust. Definitely needed to wait in the shade until the others caught up with us. There was a shady part near the front of the front gate’s guardhouse. I made a beeline for it.
“Really.” Maksohm contemplated me openly for a moment. “You honestly don’t think of him as your fiancée?”
I blinked up at him. “Now where did you hear about that?”
“Chi mentioned it. Bannen jokes about it, a little.”
“Ah.” I didn’t know how to handle this and I felt it was a little invasive but Maksohm didn’t seem to want anything. He was just curious. “It’s tradition in Turransky. When a Void Mage summons a familiar, he’s always human. They’re automatically engaged as soon as he arrives. Of course, being initially raised in Corcoran, I didn’t know that until we arrived in Turransky.” “Master Mary despaired of me, as she’s the one that informed us we were engaged, but he’s my familiar. According to the laws of Corcoran, I can’t have a relationship with him.”
Maksohm’s expression went carefully blank. “So if you obey the laws of one country, you violate them in another.”
“Between a rock and a hard place, that’s me,” I sighed.
He didn’t ask me how I felt about any of this. He didn’t ask if I wanted to say ‘sard it’ and ignore Corcoran’s laws, if I felt something more than friendship for my very attractive familiar. He didn’t ask and I gratefully didn’t offer an answer. In the end, asking if I wanted to be something more than mage and familiar was a stupid question.
The answer was obvious enough.
“Dah’lil, you are a terrible person and I’m disavowing the drop of blood that makes us family,” Nora Maksohm announced as she strode into the room, one hand on a hip, and an expression on her face that said she was only half joking. She wore the MISD uniform but casually, no jacket, the top few buttons of the shirt undone.
I sat up a little, pulling away from Rena’s side, ready to move if this woman really did intend on whaling on Maksohm. Her words could be mistaken for teasing but the hard light in her eyes suggested she really was mad.
Maksohm turned in his chair, hands splayed in a blocking gesture. “Nora. Calm down.”
“You know how I feel about Toh’sellor and you didn’t say anything to me?” Her hand twitched to the grimoire hanging off her belt.
Instinct had me at her side in a blink and I snagged her free hand, holding it gently but firmly in mine. She startled, retreating back a half step, head snapping around to stare up at me. “Hi, beautiful,” I gave her my best smile, “can we just take a breath here? Ask how each other’s doing, be friends, not throw curses?”
Nora met me look for look, still angry, but amusement edged in to her smile. “Normally a man has to at least buy me dinner before I’ll let him hold hands.”
“I can totally buy you dinner,” I leaned in a little, smile flirty, tone warm. I didn’t normally flirt women into calming down, but if it worked, why question? “Maybe even a decadent dessert?”
Nora outright grinned, relaxing a smidge. “I like you. You’re cute.”
“Nora,” Rena drawled in greeting, coming up behind me, and rested a hand at the small of my back.
I could tell in that single word that she wanted me to drop Nora’s hand and back off, but the bond still felt twitchy about an upset mage in our vicinity and it didn’t want to release her until I knew she was calm.
“Rena,” Nora responded, not antagonistic, but still seething on some level. She looked down at our hands and I could see the proverbial light click on. “I wasn’t going to throw any curses.”
“Protective instincts are running a little high these days,” I explained, letting go and retreating a half step now that I felt sure she really wouldn’t throw any magic around. “Better all around to be safe rather than sorry.”
Maksohm fortunately stepped in at that point. “Nora, I’m not going to ask why you’re here, that’s obvious, but how did you learn about this so quickly? I barely put together a message and sent it off this morning!”
The look she gave him was akin to a sibling staring at a mentally challenged younger brother. “The MISD makes the decision to attack Toh’sellor and you think I wouldn’t hear about it?”
He opened his mouth, paused, made an aborted sound and closed it again.
“Exactly,” she purred dangerously. “The very minute that decision was made you SHOULD HAVE TOLD ME.”
“You were supposed to be unreachable until today,” Maksohm responded and for a moment he sounded twelve. Seriously. Maybe ten.
Nora gave him a flat look, unimpressed.
“I sense a story here?” Not that I was sure it was wise to question it, not with them in this mood.
“I’ll fill you in later,” Maksohm promised, gesturing us all back into chairs. We’d been going over numbers and logistics, mostly of the technical and magical variety, hence why only Rena, Maksohm and I were here. The rest of the team had chosen to train, and I might have as well if not for the bond still pitching a fit over being away from Rena for long. Besides, I needed to know what they discussed anyway; it seemed the best plan to just join them.
Nora sat, angled so she could see all three of us without turning her head, one leg drawn up to her chest. Now that I had the chance to properly look at her, she had the rumpled air of someone that had traveled hard and fast. One look at her face said she wouldn’t hear about resting, not yet, not until she had answers. “Magus Rocci, can you confirm the report that you destroyed the shard single-handedly?”
“Yes.”
I glanced at Rena sideways and wondered at her tone. Normally she invited people to use her first name as well. Interesting. What caused her to react like this?
“Can you defeat Toh’sellor?” Nora pressed, nearly vibrating under the force of that question.
“Probably.” Rena bared her teeth in a not-smile. “Theoretically, yes, but Toh’sellor’s power and strength is undocumented at this time and I don’t know if I have the power, by myself, to take him down. I believe I can, but it likely won’t be something that I can manage in the first attempt.”
Nora stared at her with the blankest expression I’ve ever seen on a human being’s face. “You think you can, though. Destroy him.”
“His shards are supposedly a smaller version of him. I’ve destroyed seven of those. What makes you think the bigger version of him is any different?”
Eyes suspiciou
sly bright, Nora swallowed hard. “I never thought I’d hear those words out of someone’s mouth.” She smacked Maksohm hard on the shoulder. “You should have told me,” she hissed at him.
Maksohm rubbed at the abused arm, pouting at her. “I did. It’s not my fault you moved faster than the message could reach you.”
“Semantics,” she dismissed.
Perhaps because I remained a child on some level, I found it highly amusing to see my team leader reacting like a twelve year old, defensive against an older sister. If I didn’t know she was his cousin, I would swear siblings.
Clearing his throat, Maksohm straightened and tried to look professional again. It didn’t quite work. “I’m not sure if you’re aware, but every member of my family specializes in barriers.”
“I thought it a funny coincidence,” Rena stated, then explained to me, “His last name literally means ‘contain.’”
No way. “It’s not a coincidence.”
“Not at all,” Nora informed us, lips quirked. “Our family was the first responders when Toh’sellor first showed up two hundred years ago. We became the first line of defense, keeping the barrier going, adding and changing it as necessary, and eventually people started calling us that. The Maksohm family. It got to the point that no one actually knew our name, and we gave in and changed it. That was about six generations ago.”
I took this information in and couldn’t help but ask, “Is it just your family in charge of the barrier up there?”
“No, we do have other mages that help, but we comprise the bulk of it,” Maksohm answered. “We have a very large family. There’s currently eighty-six operatives in the field, the rest being either too young or retired.”
I thought about my family, and all of the aunts, cousins, uncles, and whatnot, and if I added them all up, I’d probably get roughly the same amount of people. “I’m amazed you have that many people that can specialize in barriers. Talents don’t usually breed true like that.”
“Some of us are better than others,” Nora admitted. “Dah’lil and I are considered the best in this generation. Now, you know what I can do. I know what you can do. What’s our grand plan?”
“We don’t have enough up to date data for that,” Maksohm informed her, his splayed hand indicating the many, many stacks of reports and the map of the Toh’sellor region on top of the table. “You know how badly that place fluctuates. I haven’t seen it myself in six months at least.”
“A month for me,” Nora said absently, leaning in closer to read one of the reports sideways. “Which makes at least this report sadly out of date.”
“A month? You might be the most accurate source, then.” Maksohm gestured for her to go on, snagging a blank pad of paper and a pencil to take notes on.
Nora leaned forward, pointing to different points of the map as she did. “We’ve had breaches here, here, and here with a possible weakness on this east section. The main wall’s giving off a steady 92.4 but the weak points are nearly 112 and climbing.”
I followed this and yet didn’t. What did the numbers mean? I quirked an eyebrow at Rena and she explained in a low voice, “Toh’sellor has its own unique energy readings, and for the sake of sanity, the MISD created a scale so they could quantify it and know how much magical power it would take to contain it. Anything over 100 is extremely difficult to contain and requires an extra barrier at the very least. Usually two.”
“You’re up to speed,” Nora approved of her with a nod. “Good. We did see something near one of the weak points, this one here,” she tapped the map with a finger, “that suggested why we might be having trouble. Those little shards that have been popping up around the world? He’s not just using them outside the barrier, but inside as well. There’s one that’s close enough to the wall that we can just see the tip of it through all of his minions. I’ll bet you my left hand that it’s true of the other weak points as well, we just can’t get a visual confirmation on it.”
“I really don’t like the sound of that.” My stomach did a queasy roll at the thought. “That means we’ll potentially have to destroy some of the smaller shards just to get inside the containment barrier. We’ll need additional teams to handle the minions; otherwise we’ll be completely overrun.”
“We’ll also need an additional mage in every team specializing in barriers because if we’re fighting both the main body and the shard’s energies at the same time, then one person can’t do the job,” Maksohm concluded aloud, a very unhappy tic in his jaw. “We’re not talking six man teams, but seven man teams, and it’s going to be difficult to pull that additional manpower.”
The MISD had more than just this problem to handle. We were already speaking of perhaps fifty people to tackle Toh’sellor with and that number just got bumped to closer to sixty. “Can we?”
“I can’t say for sure but I know that the director has put this as a top priority. We might be borrowing specialists from other countries to cover the bases, but I don’t think anyone would begrudge us the additional support. Not if it meant finally destroying that thing and reclaiming a mountain region.”
True that. “While you’re sorting people out, we need Nora on our team.”
Everyone looked at me in surprise and I stared back at them. “Oh come on, this is obvious.”
“Not really?” Nora responded slowly, head shaking in confusion.
“You just told me that you and Maksohm are the best barrier specialists of this generation. Rena is the one that has to get close and personal to Toh’sellor, of course she’s going to need the very best protection while she works. That means the two of you. With us.”
Nora blinked. “When you say up close and personal, how up close and personal?”
“Fifty feet,” Rena responded matter of factly.
Swearing, Nora actually jumped in her chair. “Please tell me you’re kidding!”
“She’s not,” Maksohm answered and he sounded very resigned. “Rena has to see the schematic in order to dismantle it. Fifty feet is her limit, she can’t see the finer details from farther away than that.”
“Dismantle?” Nora’s eyes darted between the two of them. “Wait, back up, I don’t know how she works her magic against the shards. Is this similar to what I saw her do before? Explain this to me.”
Rena once again launched into an explanation of how her magic worked, but nothing in her tone indicated that she had already done this more times than she could count. I’d certainly lost count. I tried tuning back in when they went back to discussing power levels and containment spell designs, but they spoke in such convoluted mathematical and magical terms that I basically understood a few verbs and pronouns. I was so out of my depth here.
The bond settled, going back into its usual contented hum, which meant I lost all intent to focus and my mind wandered completely. I tried to think logistics and numbers but I couldn’t really make it do so, and instead I started daydreaming about lunch. Not that I was hungry, yet, but one could never think too far in advance about food.
“Bannen.”
I jerked back to the present. “Right here.”
Rena smirked, trying not to laugh. “We’re boring you to tears, aren’t we? Look, we’ll be talking magical theory, power, numbers and such for at least the next few hours. Why don’t you go train?”
“This is why you’re my favorite,” I informed her, because if I can get out of a boring meeting, sard yes, I’ll take any excuse and run with it. “I’ll be in the yard beating up on things. Or people if I’m lucky. I’d say don’t have any fun without me, but…”
That did make her laugh. “This actually is fun for me, remember?”
I put a hand on her shoulder, consoling. “You’re strange. I love you, but you’re strange. Scream if you need me.”
I skedaddled before anyone could make me change my mind, heading for the training yard. I stepped out and found Yez there, going through a series of rather complicated looking stretches, which could mean one of two things. “Are yo
u warming up or cooling down?”
“Warming up.” He paused with his feet above his head in a handstand, perfectly at ease having this conversation upside down. “Want to spar?”
“Please. I’ve been stuck in a meeting for two hours with three mages that I swear were making up a whole new language in front of my eyes.”
“They do that,” Yez agreed easily. “I saw Nora come in, is she part of our force?”
“From the way she reacted to being slightly out of the loop? I’d lay good odds. I tried to convince them she needs to be part of our team but I’m not sure if I succeeded.”
“She’d be a good addition.” Yez lowered himself slowly out of the handstand and bent back over, stretching hamstrings.
I put my weapons aside and joined him in the stretches because Yez pushed me to the limit and I really, really couldn’t afford to pull anything. “I don’t suppose you know why she’s so adamant about destroying Toh’sellor? Her reaction makes me think this is personal.”
Yez gave me a slightly surprised look. “Do you not know how Maksohm lost his familiar?”
“No,” I answered slowly, and I had a really bad feeling about the way he asked me that. “I promised him I wouldn’t ask. Don’t tell me Toh’sellor?”
“The short version of the story is he and Nora were up there about two years ago, and someone had misjudged the barrier’s strength, so they came in just as one of the barrier sections failed. Of course they contained it again, but in the process one of the stronger minions broke through, and it killed both of their familiars before they could get the barrier up again.”
I closed my eyes, sympathizing so much my heart twinged. “No wonder.”
“Dah’lil has never been able to heal enough to summon another familiar. Nora flat refuses to, saying that her first familiar was her animal soulmate and she wasn’t going to try and recreate a bond that could never be the same again. I think at one point someone higher up tried to press them into it, because to a mage, a familiar is as much of a status symbol as the insignia they wear. It nearly drove both of them to resigning from the MISD and the director had to step in. Since then, people have learned not to talk about it.”
The Void Mage (The Familiar and Mage Book 2) Page 18