Alchemist Illusion (The Alchemist Book 3)

by Dan Michaelson

  Difficult. Which meant that the Academy was not safe.

  “What about the students?”

  “They are here. They will be as safe as we can keep them.”

  “And Tara?”

  “Ms. Stone, along with other capable students, have been pulled into the defense of the Academy.”

  Sam knew how Tara would take that. She would want to be involved. With her knowledge of the patterns that were found within the almanac and how she had mastered that as quickly as she had, it might be that she would be one of the few people capable of truly defending the Academy.

  “I can help.”

  “I am not sure that a student who does not have any arcane arts—”

  “I have something other than the arcane arts,” Sam said. “And I can help. Besides, I know what they are after.”

  “Perhaps,” Havash said, pausing and turning to Sam. “But it may be that they are after something else.”

  “They want to keep the lock open. I have to get back down there, seal it off, and make sure that they can’t succeed.”

  As soon as he said it, there came a faint rumbling.

  It felt like thunder but trembled within the stone of the building, trembling all around them.

  Within that was something else.

  Power.

  Havash frowned, tipping his head to the side, and then he turned back to Sam.

  “What are they doing?” Sam asked.

  “It seems that they are trying to burrow beneath the Academy,” Havash said.

  “Will it work?”

  Havash inhaled deeply. “Seeing as how I haven’t placed any protections there, yes.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Sam followed Havash through the hall, recognizing the buildup of power as it slammed against the Academy. He passed another dozen or so sentries, all of them hidden with the masked power wrapped around them, but none hidden so well that Sam wasn’t able to see them. He wondered if he was the only one who was able to see through what they were doing. If others could not do so, then anything he might do would only weaken the protections around the Academy.

  They reached the main part of the hallway, and Sam turned to Havash. “I need to get down into the Study Hall.”

  Havash glanced over to the almanac and Sam’s arms. “Not yet,” he said. “We need you. We need that,” he said, nodding to the almanac.

  Sam wasn’t sure that was going to be the key. If the Nighlan had already started to burrow beneath the Academy, then the almanac wasn’t going to be the key to them. It was getting to that seal, keeping Rasan Tel from breaking free.

  But how could he convince Havash of that?

  They stopped at the door leading back out into the garden. Havash pushed it open. Power bloomed in the darkness, and Sam stood frozen, transfixed. He could see the different types of arcane arts slamming into a barrier surrounding the Academy.

  “They’ve broken through the barriers around the city,” Sam said.

  Havash nodded slowly. “I could feel it, but I wasn’t sure how they managed to do that. They had been unsuccessful before now.”

  “That might be my fault,” Sam said, shaking his head. “I wanted to get back to the Academy, and I hurried as quickly as I could, afraid of staying outside of the city. Given what I had encountered and how much danger was there, I wanted to get back as quickly as possible.”

  Havash turned to him. His gaze went to the almanac again. Sam could practically imagine the Grandam debating whether to be angry or relieved that Sam had done so.

  “What did you do?”

  “I went under one barrier,” he said.

  “Under?”

  “In the river,” he said. “You didn’t drop it all the way to the riverbed. There is a way through it there. And the other I stepped through, shifting some of the strands used in forming the pattern, but I closed it up again.” He didn’t think that was the way that anyone had gotten into the city, which only left the river.

  Sam should have offered his own barrier when he had gone.

  “If I can add something to this barrier around the Academy, will you open the entrance into the Study Hall?”

  “Samran—”

  “I know you don’t believe me, Havash, and I know you never intended to have me here as a student, but I think that I needed to be here.” He held the Grandam’s gaze. “And I think that I can actually do this. You have to believe me.”

  He held onto the source, letting that power fill him, flowing through him, and even as it did, he was aware that he was standing in front of somebody who knew far more than him.

  “Whatever protection you can place here, and then I will get you in.”

  “I need to find Tara.”

  “I will have someone get her for you. While you are doing this.”

  Sam nodded.

  Havash gave him a beseeching look, and Sam stepped forward. He didn’t move too far into the garden. He didn’t need to. Only a few paces away, he was aware of Professor Clarice, the shielding that surrounded her no different than what Havash had around him. There were several others in the garden that he hadn’t even noticed when he had made his way through here. They had been concealed well enough. Tricky.

  Sam had to ignore that. He had to focus on the barrier.

  He had to offer whatever protection he could.

  The almanac.

  Havash believed that Sam would be using arcane arts, but that wasn’t what would help.

  It was the source. It was his connection and what he could use of the almanac.

  And there was something else. As he looked at the barrier, he realized that he could see a pattern there, but it was more than just the pattern that he could see. He could recognize how that pattern was woven together, and he could practically see a way to add the source to it.

  It was a barrier. That was all.

  With that being the case, then shouldn’t he need to do nothing more than work the pattern into it?

  But the pattern was complicated.

  Sam focused on it, feeling that pattern, feeling how they had placed the different angulated lines into it. And as he did, he could swear he saw a repeating and regular consistency to it.

  He focused on the source, letting it fill him.

  It wasn’t a matter of using any particular pattern that he had read about in the almanac. This was weaving, following the flows, using what he had read about in all the time spent in the library. Had he not spent that time, he wasn’t sure that he would recognize this complicated angulation, and he wasn’t sure that he would be able to do anything here. As it was, Sam could. He recognized what was there, and he recognized that there was something for him.

  He started calling upon the source, and he pushed it into the barrier.

  “Sam?”

  Tara’s voice behind him disrupted his focus, and he spun to her. She raced forward, wrapping her arms around him.

  Power continued to batter at the barrier around the Academy.

  “I will tell you what happened as soon as I finish this.”

  “As soon as you finish what?” Tara asked.

  “Adding to the barrier.”

  She frowned. “With the vrandal?”

  “With the source,” he said. He turned, ignoring her questioning gaze, knowing that he didn’t have any answer for her other than to add what he could hear. He began to work, weaving his connection into the barrier. It was simple, merely a matter of adding to what was already there, using that latticework as a scaffolding to continue to build, sending the pattern up and over, flowing in a repeating pattern. It didn’t even take all that much strength or concentration. As he added to it, the attacks battering at that barrier weakened. It was almost as if combining what he knew of the source with the arcane arts strengthened.

  Then it was done. He sealed it off.

  Sam turned back to Tara. “We need to go into the Study Hall.”

  “You don’t even want to talk about what happened?”

  Sam
glanced out into the garden. “I was captured. I thought the Nighlan took me. It turns out it was somebody else, somebody who was working against them. They taught me that I have a different kind of power. And they told me what will happen if the seals are released.”

  Tara stared at him. “When this is over, you and I are going to have a much longer conversation than that.”

  “Gladly,” Sam said. “But for now, we need to get back into the Study Hall, down to where Bethal tried to break into that power, and I need to see if the almanac can teach me a way to close that lock once again.”

  She nodded, taking his hand, and they went racing into the Academy.

  He wasn’t sure where she would take him, but she guided him up the stairs and into the instructor’s quarters.

  “There are only a few access points still available to us,” she said. “There is one here, but only a few students can reach it.”

  “You?”

  She nodded. “Seeing as how I have been tasked with trying to patrol it, yes.”

  “Who else?”

  “Like I said, only a few others.”

  “Let me guess, Tracen?”

  “Sam…”

  “He’s not going to be too happy with me.”

  “What did you do?”

  “When I went trying to get into the Study Hall, I had to use the source to keep him from holding me.”

  She watched him. “You went straight there?”

  “I didn’t know how to find you.”

  “I suppose I will accept that answer.”

  He started to smile, but he saw that she wasn’t smiling back. She was angry.

  They triggered the door.

  It came open, and there was a hint of the arcane arts over the doorway.

  Sam could see the power that was flowing there.

  “Havash thought that the power here was trying to burrow underneath the Academy,” he said, looking over to Tara. “They know about the Study Hall.”

  “Then we need to move quickly,” she said.

  As they started off, he realized that there was a faint trace of pale white energy all along the hall’s interior as well. When he said something about it to Tara, she nodded. “Havash wanted the Study Hall protected as well.”

  He used the source, and he plucked on strands around him. These were nearly as intricate as that which was around the city.

  Had Havash believed that somebody couldn’t get in here as easily?

  Another rumble came, and Sam could feel the energy within it.

  The Nighlan were coming close.

  “We need to hurry,” he said. “I can feel it.”

  “Close, or where?”

  Sam shook his head. “I don’t know. I can feel something. I just don’t know where.”

  They raced through the halls.

  When they reached a barrier, Sam stepped forward. He wasn’t sure if they would’ve placed a protection here or if they would even know that they needed to. He leaned forward, pressing his hand up against it, using the vrandal, and thankfully slipped past.

  When they did, he pulled Tara with him.

  And they reached the doorway.

  She stared at her. “This is where you were taken, isn’t it?”

  He nodded slowly. “I came here because I was looking for a place to practice. I suppose I have the alchemy tower to blame?”

  “You aren’t going to blame Tracen for that, are you?”

  “Not him, but maybe Chasten.”

  “Chasten wanted you to have a place that you could feel comfortable in,” she said. “He blamed himself, you know. He thought that he had chased you away.”

  “You thought that I ran?”

  “I didn’t, but others weren’t quite as sure. Havash talked to your sister, and she didn’t know. She said you were going to work with her, but when you didn’t…”

  “She would’ve known that I wasn’t going to abandon her,” he said hurriedly. “Mia would always know that I wouldn’t abandon her.”

  “That’s what I tried to tell her,” Tara said. “But she didn’t want to listen.”

  There was another burst of power, one that felt closer. Maybe thunder? Maybe an attempt at getting into the Academy.

  He headed to the door.

  As soon as he stepped to it, he used the vrandal, pushed power out from the source, and the door came open.

  Once inside, he paused again.

  He would have to protect this place.

  Maybe a barrier of his own would work.

  He focused, thinking about the pattern he saw within the almanac, and he placed it, swirling around the walls, securing it into place. Hopefully would hold, though he didn’t know.

  “What did you just do?” Tara asked. “I can feel something, but I can’t tell what it is.”

  “Do you remember what Daven said after he helped me? He said there was a scar blocking access to something greater. He removed it, and at first, I didn’t notice anything different.” He looked over to her. “But when I was gone, I felt something. The source.”

  “You said that before. That’s what the almanac talks about.”

  “I don’t know if the almanac refers to the source as in everything that has magic, or if it specifies the kind of power that I can access, and not the same as you, but I’m not even sure that it matters. I can feel it now, and I can feel that power within me. It took me a while to realize they didn’t need the vrandal.”

  “And what does it do?”

  “It’s alchemy,” he said. “It changes things. I suspect it would be no different than if you were to try to use it.”

  “I’ve tried to use it,” she said, “remember?”

  He remembered. It hadn’t done anything for her.

  And maybe it just needed her to trigger it in the right way. Perhaps there was a different way of putting power through it.

  “Regardless, I learned to read the almanac without the vrandal. There are a different set of patterns there for me.”

  “That’s what you did?”

  “All of my studying paid off.”

  “I told you that you had access to the arcane arts,” she said.

  “I’m not exactly sure that this is the arcane arts. Maybe it is. Maybe all of this is, but the kind of power that you access is different.” He hadn’t given that enough thought, but perhaps that was it. It had to be somehow connected to the power that was here. The alchemists must have once been able to reach the same power. Sam was certain of it.

  “We should go. We need to get down to the lock.”

  “You didn’t tell me what you did,” Tara said.

  He looked around. He could practically see the green glowing around the walls, the energy he placed there, and thought that perhaps there was something more.

  They leaned down, and they triggered the staircase.

  It opened up, spiraling down into the ground.

  So far, he didn’t see anything else, nothing other than that emptiness that stretched beneath them.

  Tara looked over at him. “Are you sure that you need to be the one to do this?”

  “I think I have to be.”

  He started down.

  Thunder rumbled again.

  When he was at the bottom, he started to feel something else. Sam took a moment to realize what it was, and he recognized it was pressure building upon the barrier he had placed.

  Somehow the Nighlan must be working against it?

  He had or quickly.

  He looked up at the top of the stairs, wondering if he would end up trapped here again, captured by someone else. This time it would be the Nighlan.

  Tara took his hand, guiding him.

  “If you need to do this, then let’s do it.”

  He let her guide him.

  They made their way along the corridor, reaching the opening with the seal.

  Sam hesitated for a moment, half expecting that there would be Nighlan attacking them here, but he didn’t see anything. He could feel the energy
that was here, some residual effect of what had been here before, and he wondered how much of it was from when the other Nighlan had been here, and how much of his was from Lilith and her people.

  It surprised him that he would feel anything.

  And he had to wonder if perhaps some of this might be Rasan Tel.

  He couldn’t help to question whether some of that energy and that power that he was detecting was tied to him.

  Sam still didn’t know what to make of that, of Rasan Tel, or of that power.

  He stopped at the seal. He remembered the one in the tower in the Barlands. They were not identical, but similar enough that the same person could have made them.

  He traced his hand around it, remembering the way that Lilith had pushed power into it.

  How can I lock it?

  “Well?” Tara asked.

  “I’m not sure what I need to do here,” he said.

  “I would suggest that you work quickly. If you don’t, then…”

  He could still feel that pressure building, something that was trying to hammer at him. It felt like they were going to break through and destroy his barrier.

  Sam used the source.

  Maybe if he poured into that seal, maybe there would be some answer for what he needed to do, but as he did, he didn’t feel anything changing. It was almost as if it pulled on that power.

  Sam stopped, half afraid that it would keep calling on the power that he was pushing into it as if it were going to swallow up his connection to the source.

  It began to ease, and Sam relaxed.

  “That’s not it,” he said.

  “Why don’t you look in the almanac?”

  He looked over to her. “I’ve read the almanac from cover to cover, and I haven’t seen anything to explain why needed to do here. I just don’t know what it is.”

  Tara looked down at it. “These are alchemy symbols.”

  “They are,” he said. “But I don’t recognize the order.”

  “They don’t have to be in order necessarily, do they?” She looked over to him. “Maybe there some pattern here that you need to find. Something that will tell you how you need to use yours.”

  The power building, pressing upon his connection to the source, was nearly overwhelming.