Disciple of War (Art of the Adept Book 4)

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Disciple of War (Art of the Adept Book 4) Page 20

by Michael G. Manning


  The light in her eyes was answer enough, but she responded, “Now you’re talking!”

  “Do you have any attention left for your mother?” asked Erisa, who had finally finished her tearful moment with Selene.

  Will smiled, hugged his mother, and then they all went inside. They shared a bottle of wine that Eric had brought back with him for his visit, and after a quick round of questioning Will found out that his uncle had been responsible for the new addition and the repairs to Arrogan’s old house. It mainly consisted of a sewing room, and an extra bedroom, but he’d also renovated the kitchen.

  The bedroom was used by Johnathan on the weekend when he closed up shop and returned to stay with his sister and daughter, but for the next few days Will and Selene would be using it while Johnathan and Eric had to make do with cots in the kitchen. Sammy still shared Arrogan’s old bedroom with her aunt.

  Will cooked, not only because his cousin wanted him to, but because he missed doing it, and Selene attempted to help, though assisting him turned into more of a group activity because she was pretty bad at the tasks he gave her. They laughed and ate, and it was only after the food was all gone that the conversation returned to more practical matters.

  “Do you think it’s safe to stay here?” asked Will’s uncle.

  He nodded. “This time the war should be on their side of the mountains, but there’s no perfect assurances in this world. I mentioned this to Sammy earlier, but if you’re interested, I’d love to move everyone closer to Cerria, or in Cerria if you prefer.”

  Johnathan frowned. “I don’t know anyone in the capital.”

  “We’ve lived here most of our lives. I don’t think the city would suit us,” put in Will’s mother. “Besides, I’m just starting to work again, helping people in the area. I wouldn’t have anything to do if we moved.”

  “You wouldn’t have to do anything,” suggested Selene, before realizing how the remark sounded. “I mean, you could take your time. Will’s got more than he even knows. You could live quietly on one of his estates. There’s villages near them as well, so you could continue tending to people if that’s your wish.” She glanced at Johnathan, then added, “And wainwrights are welcome anywhere. There’s never enough carts and wagons to be had.”

  Will winced internally, and then he caught a knowing glance from Eric. They both knew how the conversation would end. Johnathan Cartwright proved them right with his next statement. “Not to be rude, Selene, but I haven’t worked all my life to live like a tick, leeching my daily bread from someone else’s goodwill.”

  “I want to see the city,” said Sammy suddenly.

  Her father immediately stepped in. “I don’t want you any farther away than—”

  “I want to study magic, like Will,” Sammy finished, ignoring his opinion. “It wouldn’t have been possible before, but it is now, and I could stay with Will and Selene, so I wouldn’t be alone or with strangers.”

  Will gaped at her. He’d only just made the suggestion a few hours before, but as with everything else, Sammy had taken the idea and run with it. Johnathan noted the look of startlement on his face then replied, “I think you’re getting ahead of yourself, daughter. Maybe you should consider others before you presume—”

  “Actually, it was my idea,” said Will. “But I hadn’t really thought things through. It just popped into my head.” Sammy’s face darkened, and he hastened to add, “It’s the war. I’m not going to be there for at least a year, probably, and if you’re going to learn I’d rather teach you myself so you learn properly.”

  His uncle frowned. “You don’t think the masters at Wurthaven do a good job?”

  Selene stepped in to defend him. “Will isn’t really the same sort of wizard as they are. Arrogan taught him according to the old traditions. I actually gave up my elementals so he could try to teach me the same way.”

  “You’re saying you’d rather be a wizard than a sorcerer?” asked Will’s uncle. “How is that working out?”

  Will sighed. While he’d explained some things to his mother, his uncle was pretty much completely ignorant when it came to magic. All he knew was the common wisdom, and one thing that everyone knew was that all nobles, and all royalty, had elementals, because sorcery was where true power was to be had.

  Selene’s face reddened. Although Johnathan didn’t realize it, he’d hit upon a sore spot, but she faced it with the same honesty she dealt with everything else. “It’s hard and I’m not sure I’ll succeed, but I’d rather try than be what I was. And before I explain that, you should know that your nephew isn’t just a wizard, he’s the wizard. Until he starts teaching people, there aren’t any others, not really. He can do things no one else at Wurthaven can do, and he makes being a sorcerer feel like a fool’s choice.”

  Selene paused, mildly embarrassed by her display of emotion, and Erisa stepped in. “Maybe we should all take a breath. Johnathan doesn’t know much about sorcerers, so maybe it would be best if you gave us a quick summary to clarify what you mean exactly.”

  Will’s uncle broke in, “I didn’t mean to offend. Sometimes I’m too pointed with my words.”

  “No need to apologize,” said Selene.

  “So tell us what the differences are,” put in Sammy with a smile, looking at Will.

  Will groaned, glancing at Eric for sympathy, but his cousin merely shrugged. “Don’t look at me. I know the least about magic of anyone here.”

  That wasn’t entirely true. Eric had at least seen sorcerers during the recent conflict. With yet another sigh, Will began to explain, “So, there’s warlocks, wizards, and sorcerers…”

  As he worked his way through the explanation, a new presence made itself known as a grey blur leapt into Sammy’s lap. A second later Will almost lost track of his thoughts as he realized it was the goddamn cat. The demigod stared at him for several seconds, and when it appeared Will might be about to comment, the cat sounded a warning hiss, causing everyone to stop. Sammy glanced curiously at the cat, then back at Will before saying, “I don’t think Mister Mittens likes you. He never does that. Do you think he associates you with that time he was hurt?”

  Will glanced at his mother, then rolled his eyes before continuing with his explanation. Was that a collar around the Cath Bawlg’s neck? Surely not.

  Chapter 22

  They stayed for five days, and although they had a large house with servants and an easy life waiting for them back in Cerria, Will got the feeling that Selene would rather not have to leave. During their time she insisted on behaving more like a daughter-in-law than a guest, meaning she wanted to do all the dirty chores that Sammy ordinarily helped with, from laundry to gardening and even dishes.

  That surprised Eric, who would probably have taken on the largest share of the work to give his sister a break, but Will had expected it. Selene had lived a strange life, and the simple drudgery of Will’s peasant family held a special charm for her. Given how much time Selene had spent impersonating commoners, some might have thought she’d have seen enough of it, but for her it was a precious form of escapism, a way to forget her parentage.

  Either way, it endeared her to Erisa and Sammy, who both seemed sad to see her go. There were some tears and a lot of hugs when they made their good-byes. “I’ll see you next year,” reiterated Sammy, sniffing.

  “After the war is done,” corrected Will, clarifying what they’d agreed to. He hugged both of his cousins once more, then his uncle, and ended with one last long embrace from his mother.

  “Please be careful,” reminded Erisa. “You’re all I have.”

  Will tried not to meet her tearful gaze; he felt bad enough for leaving. Instead he looked at the rest of his family. “I don’t think that’s quite true.”

  “Don’t worry. He’ll be commanding, so he’ll be the safest person in the army,” Selene reassured.

  Eric grinned and added, “That’s right, Auntie. Don’t worry about him. Hell, I’m much more likely to get killed since—” His words were cu
t off sharply as Johnathan cuffed the back of his son’s head.

  “We’ll both do our best to come back safely,” said Will.

  Erisa looked at her new daughter. “You’ll stay safe at least, won’t you?”

  “Don’t worry, Mother,” answered Selene, enjoying the feel of the unfamiliar term. “I won’t be going with them.”

  Will raised a brow at that remark, since it ran counter to what he’d expected, but he said nothing. He waited until they’d finished the walk back to his old house and they were inside the carriage before he commented on her words. “You didn’t really mean what you said back there, did you?”

  Selene’s face was composed, showing nothing. “I have no intention of starting my relationship with your mother by lying to her.”

  Shit. He could tell Selene was upset by the very fact that she seemed so calm—and he had absolutely no idea what to do about it. On one hand he was relieved that she wouldn’t be coming along, but on the other hand, it was completely out of character for her. Should he argue against his own wishes, or be supportive of hers?

  His mind chased its own tail for an interminable period before Selene broke the silence for him. “Stop that. I can almost hear your brain cooking itself. I know you didn’t want me along.”

  “I would have said that I prefer to keep you safe,” said Will. “But I wasn’t going to try and force you to stay home. We met in an army camp, after all.”

  She met his eyes for a second, then looked away, before her feelings could be seen. “I’m doing the logical thing, not for us, but for the nation. As I am currently, I can’t help you with the war, whereas I’ll still have some value for the effort if I’m in Cerria.”

  “Your magic isn’t that important. Your experience dealing with the nobility is far more—” Will began.

  She didn’t let him finish. “You’ve done fine bringing them to heel. I can do more good in the capital, both in assisting with supply and organizational efforts, and in relaying messages.”

  “Messages?”

  She tapped her chest, just over her heart. “The heart-stone enchantment.”

  His plan had been to remove the binding from her before leaving. While it would allow them to communicate over long distances, he hadn’t factored that into his thoughts. “I’d rather you have your freedom in case something happens to me.” Since he held the master end of the enchantment, it was possible that if he died, a sorcerer could claim control of her in the same fashion that elementals were claimed after their master died.

  “If you die, I don’t think I’ll care much about what happens,” she responded. “Besides, this will give you some distinct advantages. If something happens and your forces are split, Father can communicate with any of the sorcerers among them and share their reports with me, then I can pass them along to you, and vice-versa.”

  Will opened his mouth, then closed it again. As usual, his wife made a lot of sense.

  “Also, if by some chance my ability to use magic normally returns, you could simply summon me to you with the enchantment. Even if it doesn’t, if you win and need me to negotiate terms after the victory, you could summon me then.”

  “You seem awfully confident we’ll win.”

  She turned to him then, and her eyes held a burning intensity. Leaning over, she planted a kiss on his lips that threatened to set the carriage on fire. Will felt something wet on his skin, and when she finally withdrew he saw a tear run down her cheek. “I’m confident that you will win–because you have to. You’ll win and you’ll come back to me safe and sound. I refuse to entertain any other possibilities.”

  He wished he shared her conviction, and his throat went dry as he saw the desperate anxiety that Selene had kept hidden for so long. Unable to form a proper response, he tried to kiss her, but she put her hand between them.

  “Say it. Say you’ll come back.”

  “I’ll do my best…”

  “Believe it. I won’t make you promise, but tell me you believe it. You’ll be back,” she insisted.

  Will hesitated, then answered, “I believe it.” She put her hand down and closed her eyes, so he sealed it with a kiss, but deep down he felt a seed of fear in his own heart. What if I can’t make it back to her?

  Their journey back to Cerria was uneventful. The weeks that followed it were similar, though they were filled with a frenzy of activity as the final preparations for the campaign were made. The levies had already been brought in and were finishing their cursory training. The bulk of the troops began the march to Barrowden a week in advance of the final elements, which would include Will and some of the senior officers.

  His training sessions with the student sorcerers came to an end as they joined their respective companies. There were more companies than sorcerers, so roughly a quarter of the companies had to do without, other than the captain commanding them, but Will prioritized the placements so that all the forward elements of the six-division army would be covered.

  Day by day the soldiers streamed away from the city and the surrounding camps, leaving Will feeling ever emptier. Selene continued to secretly work at spellcasting, but while she had fully adjusted to the third compression, she couldn’t seem to convince her body to absorb more turyn than it needed to maintain itself. The smallest of spells left her weak and gasping, and stronger ones would incapacitate her for hours.

  Strangely enough, although the war was just beginning, Will had more free time than before, so he continued his own personal training, extending the hours. His ability to reflex cast continued to expand, though once again it wasn’t the light-darts spell or the iron-body transformation, it was the silent-armor spell. It had been a useful spell to him in the past, but somehow he doubted he’d be spending a lot of time scouting now that he was the Royal Marshal.

  He also expanded his repertoire, adding a simple ethereal spell that would allow him to shift his body into the ethereal plane for short periods of around five minutes or so. There were better spells that allowed longer durations, but the complexity went up significantly and he didn’t have the time to master a new eighth- or ninth-order spell. Five minutes would have to be enough, if he even had a need for it.

  Naturally, he experimented with it quite a bit and soon discovered that although he wasn’t using one of the better versions that included the ability to see the material plane, he could still do so by adjusting his vision himself. The vision that provided was strange and hard to interpret, showing transparent, bluish outlines of whatever was in the other plane. Seeing from the ethereal to the material usually showed a complex array of objects, but looking from the material to the ethereal was generally fruitless. As Arrogan had said, there was simply nothing there to be seen. The only way Will was able to confirm that it actually worked in both directions was by taking objects into the ethereal and leaving them so he could try and see them after returning to the material world.

  All in all, it seemed like a useful spell, especially if one needed to hide for a short period of time, or perhaps to get past an obstacle such as a wall, but it would be impossible for him to use it to move more than two or three soldiers that way—say, if he wanted to get them into a castle. There had supposedly once been ethereal-based spells that would enable one to create a temporary passage through a small portion of the ethereal plane to easily allow that type of thing, but he failed to find any, even in the restricted sections of Wurthaven’s library.

  In the evenings, Will had been working on learning to control his ability to astrally project. Having someone paralyze him and seal his senses seemed like a rather extreme measure, plus as he got used to the experience, it failed to induce the panic that seemed to enable him to break free of his body. His first idea had been to find a spell that would enable him to block off his own senses, but halfway to the library he’d realized he could probably do that on his own. He’d already become an expert at altering and enhancing his senses—he simply had to do the opposite.

  In fact, he’d already tried some
thing similar, dampening his hearing when he needed to study and kept being distracted by other people’s conversations. He’d also started doing so when he projected his voice to prevent being deafened. Blocking his sight and sound were rather simple, though he discovered it was harder to block his sense of touch.

  Fortunately, my superpower is stubbornness, he told himself on the day he finally succeeded. After that, his attempts at leaving his body began to show regular improvement. He no longer needed to panic, and if anything, he worried that the biggest danger was that he might grow too accustomed to the experience. Following that train of thought, he took an old piece of Arrogan’s advice and looked up a spell that protected the user from possession. The spell created a barrier that not only prevented unwanted spiritual intrusion but would keep the caster from inadvertently leaving their body, during sleep for example, which Will had already done once before.

  It was a sad fact that astral projection wouldn’t allow him to spy on the enemy, though. As he had been taught, and discovered himself through experimentation, he could only go to a place where there was someone he knew, and even then only if they were more than a passing acquaintance. There needed to be some sort of connection or relationship; otherwise it simply didn’t work. Consequently, it was easy for him to find friends and family, or people he dealt with on a regular basis, but a one-time meeting with someone usually wasn’t enough for him to find them on the astral plane.

  He wanted to do more than just check up on his family now and then, so he practiced by trying to find the student sorcerers while he was on the astral plane. Doing so made the limits of the ability abundantly clear. While he could remember the names and faces of nearly half of the two hundred students, he couldn’t find most of them astrally. In general, he was able to find those he interacted the most with, like Burke, Emory, and a few others who had made a deeper impression on him.

  Will really wished he could communicate with the people he found that way, but aside from his sister Laina, and her bodyguard Darla, no one could sense him when he was observing them astrally.

 

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