Secrets and Spellcraft

by Michael G. Manning

  “Holy Mother!” swore Rob. “Are you serious?” He reached forward to tentatively probe Will’s chest. “And you’re still in one piece? Did someone sew you back together? Tell the truth. You’re one of the undead now, aren’t you? I bet if you take that tunic off, you’re nothing but stitched-together body parts.”

  Feeling bold, Will stood and pulled up his tunic, showing off his unblemished skin. “I’m all of a piece.”

  “How the hell? Are you even human?” Then Rob’s eyes grew round. “Wait, did you say talons? What talons?”

  “I already told you, I’m not sharing the details. Just trust me when I say it’s not a good idea to go into the city with me. That’s why I needed you to go with Janice, and why I need someone to pick up the armor for me next week. I’m not sure I’d make it alive if I went myself.”

  Rob grimaced and the humor left his face. “I feel like a terrible friend. I want to force the details out of you, but I’m honestly scared to know more. I’ll get the armor, and if there’s anything else I can do, just let me know.” He leaned over and looked at Will’s desk. “What are you working on?”

  “A new spell.”

  “You’re learning a new spell?”

  “No, I’m trying to make a new one, or recreate one at least,” said Will.

  “Damn, Will. You shouldn’t be trying that sort of thing for at least another year.”

  Will shrugged. “I don’t have a lot of time to spend waiting around for what the school curriculum thinks is best for me.”

  Rob frowned. “I know you already have some spells the school wouldn’t approve of. What more do you need?”

  “A spell to kill demons.”

  Rob’s face paled, then he held up one hand, flexing his fingers as though they were claws. “Talons,” he muttered.

  “Or claws,” said Will. “I’m not sure. Are talons just on birds?”

  Rob reached out and took Will by the shoulders, turning him so they were face to face. “Listen to me, Will. You should stick with hunting girls. It’s safer and a lot more rewarding.”

  Will returned a lopsided grin. “I think I’m more scared of girls.”

  “Than demons? Don’t expect me to come to your funeral. You’re a wizard, Will. Leave the demons to sorcerers. We don’t have the power for that sort of thing.”

  Will sat back down in his chair. “I didn’t choose this, but I’m not going to run from it.” He looked up at Rob. “And you’re wrong. We do have the power for this, or we should have.”

  Chapter 41

  The next day after his classes were over, Will tried out his cobbled-together spell. The result was less than spectacular. What had looked workable on paper didn’t line up when he actually tried to construct the spell. He was forced to go back over his design and adjust several elements before he had something that could actually form a coherent structure. And when he actually tried casting his newly revised spell, it promptly blew up in his face.

  Arrogan had a good laugh when he described what had happened. “It’s a good thing you’re working with a type of turyn harmless to humans or you might have blown your face off. Not that that is necessarily a bad thing. It probably would have improved your looks.”

  Will was beginning to understand why designing new spells was considered dangerous.

  “Next time, don’t invest the full amount of turyn in it,” advised the ring. “It might not be dangerous with this spell, but it’s a good habit to get into for future spell designs. Start with a fraction of the power needed to activate it and then work your way up slowly. Once you’re sure the construct is stable, you can test it at full strength.”

  “You knew that would happen, didn’t you?” accused Will.

  “It was a fair bet, but this was a safe spell for accidents, and accidents are the best way to learn.”

  After that Will went over the entire design again, paying particular attention to balancing each element so the construct wouldn’t have excessive strain at any given point. He thought it was perfect, but one thing bothered him, so he asked the ring, “The new spell is more complex. It’s definitely third-order.”

  “That’s to be expected,” said Arrogan.

  “Why?” asked Will. “The original force-lance is only second order. This is the same thing, just with a different type of turyn output.”

  “You just built it and you don’t know why?”

  Exasperated, Will sighed. “Well, I can see that it has an extra layer for the positive chaos turyn, but I don’t understand why it has to be that way.”

  “Force effects are the simplest, as well as the most powerful effects,” explained the ring. “That gives them excellent properties for a lot of battle magics, but in this case, you’re modulating it to produce a different type. While that makes it immensely effective for demons, it complicates the spell construct.”

  Curious, Will asked, “What are these excellent properties you mentioned?”

  “For force effects? There are several. Aside from being the simplest type to produce, they create the most physical force of any type of spell, better even than earth, considering there’s no actual matter involved. They also ignore basic principles that spells incorporating physical matter normally have to obey. For example, one of the staple defense spells, the point-defense shield, relies on it because force spells ignore momentum and inertia.”

  “What does that spell do?”

  “It creates a tiny shield of pure force,” explained Arrogan. “It’s usually the size of a buckler, maybe a foot in diameter.”

  “It doesn’t sound very handy,” opined Will. “It’s too small to block much.”

  “Well, you don’t use it to stop a hail of arrows, numbskull. It requires skill and precision, but it will stop anything it gets in front of dead in its tracks, assuming it doesn’t block something so absurdly powerful that it overloads the spell, and that’s rare.”

  “That sounds sort of useful, but not extremely so. I must be missing something.”

  The ring snorted. “Nothing new there. The reason it’s so beloved and well used—”

  “By who?” interrupted Will.

  “By wizards in my time. People who knew what the fuck they were doing,” replied Arrogan. “Are you going to let me finish?”

  “Go ahead.”

  “As I was saying, the reason it was so beloved is because of its efficiency and extreme durability. For a tiny input of turyn, you get a shield that can block almost anything, from a charging bull to a devastating death-lance. You can use it in all sorts of situations, both defensively and as an offensive trick depending on where you place it.”

  “Why not make it bigger then?”

  “Force effects use turyn on an exponential curve.”

  “What the hell does that mean?”

  “It means that the turyn required goes up drastically as the size of the spell effect increases. It also drops rapidly as the spell-effect size decreases. So for small things, like a force-lance, or a small shield, you can get a lot of bang for very little turyn, but if you try to do something big, like create a force-dome, you’ll exhaust yourself in seconds. Turyn used to manipulate elemental effects follows a nearly linear power curve. That’s why large-scale effects are generally done with it, like the wind-wall spell for example. Wind is one of the best elemental types for destruction on a wide scale—it has the physicality that fire lacks, while at the same time it isn’t as dense as water or earth.”

  Will remembered his Math professor putting special emphasis on exponential and linear graphs, but at the time he had only thought about it as a graphing problem. It hadn’t really meant anything to him in a practical sense. He’d also heard Dulaney mention the differences in turyn cost based on the type of turyn used, but again, it hadn’t impacted him directly.

  Now it was beginning to mean something. “I think I’m starting to see what you’re driving at,” said Will slowly.

  “It will mean more as time goes on,” said Arrogan. “A true wizard
is a master of magic, a master of turyn in all its forms. Spells are the means we use to effect our will, to impress our desires on the universe, but they aren’t everything. We also ride the currents of free turyn around us. To be effective in combat you have to learn to balance all of it, the turyn you’re absorbing, the turyn you’re using, and what’s going on around you. At times you’ll want to be empty, to better improve your ability to take your opponent’s magic away from him. At other times you want as much as you can hold, so you can fuel a larger spell.”

  “It sounds complicated.”

  “It is, when you think about it. Practice and training will make it natural and instinctive. It’s similar to dancing. You practice so that when you get on the dance floor you don’t have to think about what your feet are doing. You just flow with the music. Sorcery has ruined the practice of magic these days. Most sorcerers are idiots with big hammers, lacking all skill and finesse. Because of them, the modern wizards are lackluster as well. They’ve retained much of the technical knowledge, but their inability to use magic regularly has stripped them of the art. What you’re becoming is so different from both of them that they won’t be able to believe what you can do.”

  “We’ll see,” said Will neutrally. The mention of dancing had dampened his spirits and provoked a new round of anxiety. He dismissed the limnthal so he could focus on trying out his newly revised spell.

  This time it worked, firing off a red-orange beam that struck a nearby tree without doing any harm to it. Hopefully it would have a far different effect if he ever had to use it on a demon.

  With a deep sigh, he put away his papers and walked back to the dorm. It was time to meet Dianne and Janice for their first dance lesson.

  They were standing outside the dormitory when he arrived, and Will thought Dianne seemed particularly energetic. Her face was alight with barely concealed enthusiasm. Either she really loves dancing, or she’s looking forward to seeing me embarrass myself, he thought sourly.

  Together the three of them went to the gym. Since it was evening, the building wasn’t being used for much, making it a perfect place to practice. Dianne started them with a waltz, taking each of them in turn through the steps as she alternated her role between leading and being led.

  Will tromped all over Dianne’s feet, and once she pronounced him ready to attempt the dance with his partner, he did the same to Janice. After an hour of clumsiness, it felt as though the only thing he had mastered was discovering new ways to apologize.

  Poor Janice did her best to hide a faint limp as they left afterward.

  “I really am sorry,” said Will for the hundredth time.

  “It’s all right,” Janice responded mildly. “You’ll get better.”

  He wasn’t sure about that. They met again at the same time the next day, and he repeated his performance, putting new bruises on top of the ones he had given them the day before.

  “Ow!” yelped Janice after a particularly painful assault on her toes. She released him and hopped backward on her other foot. “Shit! Are you trying to lame me for life?”

  Will was already apologizing, while his face felt as though it had gotten even redder. Dianne stared at Janice in surprise. Neither of them had ever heard Janice swear before. She seemed to have finally lost her patience.

  “Take a rest, Janice,” said Dianne. “I’ll practice with him for a bit.” She had a look on her face that said she knew she was risking her life for her the good of her fellow woman. Will stepped forward, but Dianne held up one hand. “Take off your boots. You aren’t allowed to wear footwear until you improve—considerably.”

  Things went better after that. Deprived of their weapons, Will’s feet couldn’t inflict as much damage, and Dianne was more adept at avoiding his trampling attacks. Will was starting to feel more confident, so much so that when the next turn came, he attempted to lead Dianne into a twirl. It went well, until he kicked the older woman’s legs out from under her.

  The resident assistant’s derriere met the gym floor with a resounding thump as she crashed to the ground. She lay there for a moment staring up at him with an angry expression. “William,” she said quietly, her voice thrumming with barely concealed malice, “are you trying to kill me?”

  “No, ma’am! I’m sorry. I’m not sure what happened.”

  “You kicked me! Why?”

  “It was a spin so—”

  “No. You don’t kick. You never kick. I’m the one twirling. All you have to do is keep your goddamn legs in one place and hold my hand.” She gingerly got up from the ground, rubbing her posterior with one hand. “Were you dropped on your head as a baby?”

  Will hung his head in shame. “Probably.” He glanced up at Janice, hoping for support, but she refused to meet his eyes.

  As the week progressed, he gradually got better, but both Janice and Dianne remained wary whenever they began practicing with him. Once stomped, twice shy, thought Will.

  In his free time, he found that his spellcraft was developing quickly. The effort of developing a new spell had brought about more improvement than he had seen in the weeks prior. He wasn’t sure why, but Arrogan didn’t seem surprised at all.

  “To create a new spell, you had to break apart two others and learn their constituent parts in a new way. Your overall understanding of how they work is better now. Of course, that would lead to you being able to cast the original spells with greater alacrity and efficiency,” said the ring.

  His improvement was such that on Saturday morning he finally managed to successfully put together a sixth-order construct, the chameleon spell. Naturally, he tried it out immediately and was amazed as his arms shifted color, almost fading from sight.

  The turyn drain was light, so he felt sure he could keep the spell up almost indefinitely once cast. He experimented by walking around his dorm room. While moving he could spot the motion of his limbs, but whenever he stopped his body faded almost completely from sight. “This is wild,” he muttered.

  Not content to stay inside, he ventured into the hall. Two other students were walking along and they glanced in his direction, then stopped. He could tell they had seen something when he stepped out. They seemed confused. He held still for a minute and eventually they must have decided that they were imagining things, for they moved on and went to the stairs. They passed right by him on their way.

  Wanting to test it further, he went to Seth’s door and knocked. “Who is it?” asked his friend, but Will didn’t answer.

  After a moment the door opened, and Seth looked out. Will was standing directly in front of him, but Seth’s eyes didn’t focus on him at first. The other boy looked from side to side, frowning, and then he stared at the space directly in front of him. A few seconds later he jumped and fell against the doorframe with a scream. “What the hell?”

  Will began to giggle. “It’s me, Seth.”

  Seth was scrambling backward across the floor, staring in Will’s direction while squinting. He gave the impression of someone who had lost his glasses. “What is that? Why can’t I see you properly?”

  “A chameleon spell,” said Will proudly. “I just mastered it. I’ve been working on it all week.”

  “Turn it off. You’re freaking me out!” whined his friend. Will did, and Seth breathed a sigh of relief. “Where did you learn a spell like that?”

  “It was something my old master left me.”

  “He must have been a pervert.”

  Will snorted. “Possibly.” Then a thought occurred to him. “Don’t mention this to Rob. He’ll be begging me to sneak him into the girls’ dorm if he finds out.”

  A funny look entered Seth’s eyes, but he shook his head after a moment. “Yeah. That would be really wrong.”

  Will gave his friend a knowing look. “Clearly, Rob isn’t the only pervert around here.”

  “Shut up,” said Seth. “It just crossed my mind for a second.”

  His eyes narrowed to slits. “I’ll be watching you.”

  Seth
laughed. “Seriously, though. You probably shouldn’t mention this to anyone, not just Rob. Otherwise people will suspect you anytime something comes up missing.”

  “I hadn’t thought about that.”

  “You never think first. That’s why you’re always in trouble,” opined Seth. “Now go away. I need to finish this essay.” He pushed Will out of the room.

  Will stood in the hall for a minute, trying to decide what he should do. He couldn’t just go back to his room. He was too excited. He constructed the spell again and cast it on himself, then made for the stairs.

  Exiting the dorm without being seen was even easier than he’d expected. He had to stop twice on the stairs as other people came up, but as long as he stayed to one side and kept still whenever someone got close, no one noticed him.

  The front door was the only real challenge, and he quickly realized there were only two strategies that might work. He could either wait until no one was around to notice the door opening, along with the strange blur pushing it, or he could try and sneak along behind someone going his direction.

  Not feeling patient, he chose the latter course and nearly got caught by the door. The boy ahead of him, Chris Burnham, never knew he was being shadowed. Will scuffed his shoe once they were outside, though, and he thought he would be caught, but Chris merely glanced back then went on his way.

  Will fixed the noise problem by casting the silent-armor spell on himself. He felt the turyn drain increase, but it was still manageable. To offset the drain, he increased his outer shell to take in turyn at a greater rate, then he headed for the wall. It was time to explore the city again.

  The addition of an active climbing spell significantly increased the drain on his turyn. “I could probably keep this up for fifteen or twenty minutes,” he told himself. It was something to keep in mind if he ever had to hide while suspended on a wall, though.

  Free of the confines of Wurthaven, Will began to wander. He had no particular destination in mind, being more interested in seeing just how effective the chameleon spell would be in crowded areas.