by Adam Thomas
After a moment of awkward silence, Dressa said, “So, you’re the friends Shonasir has told me nothing about.” She looked up at Rhys. “That’s, ah, a big sword you’ve got there.”
“Don’t encourage him,” Alurel said, patting Rhys on his muscular forearm.
“So, Dressa,” Emric began, groping for a topic. “Are you a meteorology student too?”
“No.”
“Then you’re here at Grenadin for applied sciences?”
Dressa chuckled. “Me, a scientist? I’m studying business at Graymor College.”
Something wasn’t adding up. Emric’s brow furrowed in consternation. “Then how did you know about Cloudchaser’s odd behavior?”
Shonasir’s flatmate worked her mouth a few times and licked her lips. “I heard about it around campus.”
“Dressa, why are you lying to us?”
Dressa’s eyes flicked back to Rhys, whose hand was now gripping the hilt of Tyrevane. “Look, my aunt asked me to contact Shonasir, get them back here to Thousand Spires. I asked around and heard about Cloudchaser canceling classes. That’s all.”
“That’s not all,” Sorvek said. “Who’s your aunt?”
“Why does that matter?”
“It matters.”
“Her name is Serafina Sindar.”
Tyrevane was in Rhys’s hand before he could think about drawing the sword. “Take us to Shonasir right now. They’re in grave danger.”
The books spilled from Dressa’s hand at the sight of the sword pointed at her. She nodded vigorously and dashed off after the elf. The B-Team followed her.
They found Shonasir pounding their fist against a locked door on the ground floor of the Grenadin building. “Let me in, Professor,” they called. “It’s Shonasir. Whatever’s going on, I can help you!”
No answer came from within, but Shonasir could hear someone moving about. They shot their companions a quizzical look as they raced up, weapons drawn. “What’s wrong?”
“No time,” Rhys said, and he kicked the door down.
He and Shonasir stepped into the lab. The place was a mess. Glass tubing, beakers, papers, and half-eaten plates of food were strewn across work tables and the floor. At the far end of the room, a dwarf stood with his back to them. In one hand he held a beaker full of bubbling gray-blue liquid. With his other, he stroked the glass of a chamber shaped like a cone pointed down. The base of the chamber crackled with energy the same color as the bubbling liquid.
Professor Barish Cloudchaser turned and regarded Shonasir. “The Lucky Number returns,” he said, a hint of mania elevating his baritone. “When you visited me recently and told me what happened when you went into the storm chamber –” He reached back and knocked on the glass “–my mind raged like a tempest with new theories, new possibilities. At first, I thought the chamber had killed you. So did the regents, who suspended me and shuttered my laboratory, pending investigation of the accident. But then I heard word that you were alive, and then I saw you, and you weren’t just alive, you were awash in elemental power. My experiment failed, but something else succeeded. Shonasir, I am this close to perfecting my formula.”
Cloudchaser held up the beaker. “This is my most recent batch, and I need a test subject. You, more than anyone else at this university, are the safest person to try it. You coming here today shows that it was meant to be!”
While he spoke the manic glee in his voice drove it higher and higher in register until it cracked into crazed laughter. But after a few seconds of this, Cloudchaser suddenly sobered. “Shonasir, please. I’ve canceled all my classes to pursue this research. I’ve called in all my favors. This is my last chance or I’m done at the university. Please, help me.”
Before Shonasir could respond, Rhys spoke up. “What have the vampires put you up to?”
Cloudchaser looked at Rhys as if seeing him for the first time. “Vampires?”
“Is this an elaborate way to pick one of us off?” He held Tyrevane in both hands, menacing, confident.
“Young man, I have no idea what you’re talking about. Shonasir, who is this?”
Shonasir patted Rhys’s shoulder. “I don’t think he’s in league with them, Rhys. Let me talk with him alone.”
“But your flatmate –”
“I’ll take my chances. Please, wait in the hall.”
Rhys backed out of the room, his hands still gripping the sword. Shonasir turned back to their professor and casually unlooped the magical bowstring from their neck.
“Tell me, Professor Cloudchaser, what makes you think I would ever consent to being your test subject again?”
The dwarf stared blankly at the elf, as if the thought of noncompliance had never entered his mind.
“Last time,” Shonasir continued, “you said the storm chamber was a new invention that would help us study weather up close.” They kept their voice even, composed. “What had I truly signed up for when I entered it?”
The manic glint returned to Cloudchaser’s eye, and he began to shake his head vigorously. “Shonasir, I have no idea how you ended up so far away.”
“But you admit the experiment had nothing to do with studying weather patterns?”
“That was always part of it.”
Shonasir pumped their arm and their bow appeared. “Tell me the truth, Professor! What was the actual experiment?”
Cloudchaser began walking toward them, but stopped as Shonasir nocked an arrow. “The truth, Professor,” Shonasir said again.
The dwarf backed up until he bumped the glass of the storm chamber. “If I tell you, will you consent to being my test subject a second time?”
Shonasir drew back their bowstring. “You will tell me, and I will commit to nothing.”
“This isn’t like you, Shonasir,” Cloudchaser said, his words an attempt at soothing, but the mania in his voice betrayed his true aim. “You used to be a dispassionate scientist. Your travels have made you wild.”
“My travels have made me strong and confident. You preferred me pliable and easily swayed.”
“No, not swayed, Shonasir. Not swayed. Convinced.” Cloudchaser held up the beaker of bubbling liquid and spoke faster and faster as he explained. “There is a family in Stormholt in Kelen who have the ability to turn into elementals of lightning energy. No one knows why, but I have theorized that their proximity to the Storm Curtain has somehow magically altered their body chemistry. I have studied the Panterras from afar, gathering data, making observations. And all my research has led me to this.” He jiggled the beaker, which frothed like a freshly tapped keg of beer.
“Shonasir, I want to understand this power they have, to harness it. When I put you in the chamber, I thought I had cracked the code. And I was close. So close!”
The elf sent lightning energy into the arrow quivering at the end of their bow. “So you were trying to turn me into a...a storm?”
“Not completely,” Cloudchaser said hastily. “The Panterras can morph between their human and elemental forms. It’s fascinating!”
“And you think something that has happened biologically over generations of proximity to the Storm Curtain can be forced to happen through a what? A chemistry experiment?”
Cloudchaser sighed and his eyes narrowed. “I can see I’ve lost you like I lost the regents. No one understands the genius of my research.” Cloudchaser looked down at the beaker and growled, “No one except me.”
The dwarf flung open the door of the storm chamber and stepped inside. Before Shonasir could react, he threw the beaker at the ground, where it shattered into a thousand pieces. The liquid held within immediately expanded into a silver-blue gas that filled the chamber.
But something was wrong. The gas continued to expand until it forced the glass ceiling of the chamber away from the conical walls. The chamber broke apart, and now Shonasir could see, swirling within the g
as, a small tornado where Cloudchaser had been. The spinning cone of gas was growing, sucking all the detritus of the lab toward its center.
Shonasir raced from the lab, shouting, “Everyone out!”
The B-Team took one look through the open door and hightailed it after Shonasir. By the time they reached the quad, the windows along one side of the building had all shattered. The building itself began to quake. Other occupants fled the structure. Soprano screams of bystanders clashed with the bass rumble of breaking masonry.
The tornado burst through the roof, sending bricks and shingles flying. The cyclone cut a wide furrow across the quad, a raging whirlwind filled with jagged pieces of slate and glass. Trees bent towards it as it snatched at their leaves with gale force winds.
Alurel shouted over the din of the storm, “We need to get it out of the city. Lead it north. I’ll try to lessen its power.”
The others gaped at Alurel, who didn’t stop to entertain their opinions but ran forward and planted herself directly behind the path of the tornado. Splaying her fingers wide, she called on the power of the wind that was not part of the unnatural storm. She could not stop it, but she could protect the area just beyond the tornado’s direct path.
For a moment, the others watched her channel her magic, stunned at the power she was wielding. Then Shonasir snapped out of the momentary trance and called forth the power of their own Awakened Storm. They leapt within it and raced ahead of the tornado.
Immediately, its meandering path locked in heading due north after Shonasir. Somehow Cloudchaser was alive in there, controlling the storm. It was the only possible reason for the tornado’s chosen direction. Thankfully, the university was located in the northwestern corner of Thousand Spires, and Grenadin College was located in the northwestern corner of the university. In no time at all, Shonasir flew over the city’s outer wall into the vast open fields of southern Sul. Unlike the opposite side of the city, which was marked by miles and miles of urban sprawl, the land beyond the northern wall was empty. Shonasir gave a grunt of thanks for small blessings, but it was drowned out by the crash of the wall giving way to the power of the raging cyclone.
The tornado broke through the thick stone masonry as if it were the wall of a sandcastle on the beach. The other members of the B-Team pelted through the opening and emerged in the open field. Shonasir stopped leading the tornado and turned to face it, bow drawn. Elemental ice hardened on the arrowhead. Below them, magic pulsed to life in Sorvek’s hands and Rhys’s karest and along the strings of Emric’s lute. Alurel let her wind spell drop now that they were away from a populated area and called forth instead the searing light of the moon.
“Cloudchaser, stop!” Shonasir shouted over the low whistling din of the storm.
But the tornado had no ears to hear nor will towards moderation. It was a storm and storms rage until their energy is spent.
“I’m sorry, Professor,” Shonasir said as they let fly their arrow. The others took that as a signal and unleashed their magic as well.
All five blasts of magic hit the tornado at once. And all five caused pieces of the tornado to spin off, smaller cyclones birthed from the body of the storm. Grinning, Rhys pulled out Tyrevane and slashed through the small elementals, dissipating their tempestuous energy with his blade.
With each magical strike against Cloudchaser’s tornado, it flung off another elemental, lessening its own power in the process. Soon Rhys had his hands full, and Alurel charged to help him as the magnificent elk. She crashed through the elementals, sending them puffing into the air.
At length, the tornado was not much taller than Rhys. Shonasir let fly an arrow and it stuck in the center of the storm. The swirling wind vanished, and Professor Cloudchaser fell to the ground, the arrow lodged in his side.
twenty-nine
The Archmage
And to think that they gave you an honor name,” Emric said as the B-Team closed the door of the anti-magic chamber. The university had such rooms for use upon magical mishaps, and now Professor Barish Cloudchaser, semi-conscious and delirious, was locked in one.
Two members of the spire guard, who were patrolling the section of wall the tornado destroyed, had tragically lost their lives to the storm. The laboratory building of Grenadin College was gone. And the landscaping was in dire need of cleanup. But without Alurel’s magic, the tornado’s rampage could have been much, much worse. Somehow, her druidic talent guided the storm’s energy away from as many people as she could. It was the most power she had ever channeled; if the need had not been so dire, she never would have tried such a potent spell. But now she knew she could do it.
“What now?” she asked the next morning over breakfast at a greasy hole-in-the-wall near the university.
“Shonasir’s professor was a pretext,” Rhys said. “We’re back in Thousand Spires because the vampires want us here. The question is why?”
“We could go ask them,” Emric said hopefully.
Sorvek flicked his ear. “Are you sure you’re not still charmed?”
“I don’t think Dressa knew what she was doing,” Shonasir said. “There’s no way she knows what Serafina has become. The vampires need to protect their secret and we are one big loose end.”
“Don’t you think if they wanted us dead, it would be safer to do it away from the city?” Alurel offered. “I think it’s something else.”
“What then?”
“I don’t know. That’s what scares me.”
They ate in silence for a while. When he had licked his plate clean Emric said, “I’ve been writing a new song. It’s called ‘The Ballad of the Steely Rose.’ It’s about Rosamund.”
“About your crush on her?” Sorvek jabbed.
“No, it’s another whisper campaign like with Karfu. But more subtle this time. There’s nothing explicitly about her, but it’s about her, if you know what I mean.”
“Seldom if ever.”
“Look,” Shonasir said. “We’ve got a lot of unknowns right now. The ironwood seed. The vampires’ plot. Rhys’s new sword.”
The big swordsman stopped with a forkful of eggs halfway to his mouth, but he didn’t say anything. Hot words scraped their way across his mind. They will try to take me from you. Don’t let them.
Rhys shook away the voice and refocused on Shonasir, who concluded, “I think we need to go see the archmage.”
Alurel clapped her hands. “Yes, I love her!”
They journeyed across the city to the League Quarter and gained entry to the Ministry of Arcana, where Halla Haeron kept an apartment. The door stood open when they arrived on the landing on the top floor.
“I think she’s expecting us,” Emric said.
“The old snooper,” Sorvek said, his cheeks flushing violet at the thought that Halla might have scryed on him and Tuvala a few nights ago.
A young elf, tall and graceful, stood in the doorway. They wore a long, form-fitting white tunic over knee-length trousers. Their skin edged to the reddish side of purple, which set off their piercing blue eyes. “Please,” they said. “The archmage looks forward to your visit.”
They ushered the B-Team into Halla’s chambers where the ancient elf was sitting in a chair that looked out a window towards the heart of the city. The cathedral’s tower was just visible in the distance, rising above the rest of the city’s spires.
“Ah, thank you, Imral,” Halla said.
The young elf bowed and took up a position to one side of Halla’s chair. Halla’s mischievous grin flickered as she glanced from Imral and Shonasir, who were of an age. “Imral has been taking care of me for a while now,” she said. “I’m not as young as I once was, and I have trouble getting around. I’m –”
“674 years old,” Shonasir finished, and their eyes met Imral’s for an instant. The caretaker bit their lips to stifle a laugh. “We know, Grandmother. We thought we might take adva
ntage of your long-lived experience.”
“We need to get to the Dasost Forest,” Alurel said. “Do you know if they ever let outsiders in? We want to give them this.” She held up the glass globe containing the sprouted seed.
Halla reached out for it, and Alurel placed it gingerly in her papery fingers. “This is a treasure,” the archmage said, her voice full of wonder. “Can you not feel it? This seed holds ten thousand years of potential life. The magic inherent in it cannot be denied. It pulls on me like gravity.”
“I think you’re more attuned to such things than we are,” Alurel said. “But it is a treasure, that’s for sure.”
“Ah, you young ones. Often I forget that your perception is so dim.”
From anyone else’s lips, such a statement would have been an insult, but from Halla it was a matter of fact. She seemed to realize the possible insult just the same and hurriedly qualified: “But your passions lead you to dare great things. I do miss those days.” She glanced again from Shonasir to Imral. “You know, it would do my heart good if someone took care of my passionate Imral like they take care of me.”
Imral put their hand on Halla’s shoulder. “Archmage, let’s hear them out.”
“Yes, yes, all right.”
“The Dasost?” Alurel prompted.
“They do not let in outsiders as a general rule, but with this seed, you might get in. You could try Eastwatch, but that entails quite the voyage. I’d say the best way to go is runegate to Eredaen and sail across the Verinon Par. The Dasost patrol the eastern shores. You could beg your way in from there.”
“That’s certainly the quickest way,” Shonasir agreed. “There are Parth fishing boats we could charter.”
“You know,” Halla said, “Imral here is Parth, just like you, Shonasir.”
The two young elves smiled at each other and then looked away, embarrassment glowing on their cheeks from Halla’s obvious implication.
“Now, now,” Halla continued, reading their expressions. “I haven’t much time left before I am gathered back to Karanathan, and I want to do a little more good before I go.”