by Liam Lawson
The Horned Mage
Book 1
Broken Curse
By Liam Lawson
Copyright © 2020 by Liam Lawson. All rights reserved.
Table of Contents
A Note From the Author
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
A Note From the Author
This is not the first publishing of The Horned Mage. Caleb and the gang were among my earliest forays into writing urban fantasy with a decidedly adult bend, then under a different penname. For personal reasons, the originals were taken down and I moved on to writing other things, such as An Orc at College, which was heavily influenced by The Horned Mage. I debated long and hard about re-releasing The Horned Mage, concerned that it might be too similar to An Orc at College, however, several things acting in concert changed my mind. I’ve come to feel that the voice I use to tell Caleb’s story is distinct enough, and his world different enough (though still similar) from Trorm Coldstorm’s to stand on its own. If you read the original release, you may note some changes. I’ve given the series another edit and am pleased to share it with you once again.
Please enjoy…
Chapter One
I was frozen in place. Not literally, thank my dear and fluffy Lord, because I was pretty sure that Professor Cristobal Hardin was fully capable of enveloping my entire body in a block of ice. Not that it made much difference now, with every eye in the class turned upon me. I’d never really gotten used to people looking at me, although given that I sported a pair of black, six pronged antlers, I really should have. When people stare at me, I have to resist the urge to flinch and drop my eyes.
The reason for their attention on me now though had nothing to do with my antlers but rather, the question the professor had just asked me and which I had totally and completely missed because I’d been staring at my best friend, Soraya Cabal, and imagining us making vigorous animal love. The location hadn’t mattered too much to my imagination—that had instead been focused on thinking about what her curvy body looked like beneath the usual jeans and hoodies she wore. Thank God she had no idea how bad I had it for her or our friendship would be completely ruined.
Of course, her dark and intelligent eyes were also fixed on me, filled with a curious, and maybe a little mischievous, light. She was enjoying my predicament. Wicked woman. What the hell had Professor Hardin just asked me? Her smirk gave me no clue.
“Mr. Marshal,” Prof. Hardin’s said. “We’re waiting.”
I was supposedly lucky to have gotten into Hardin’s class. Normally he only taught magical theory at the upper levels and his classes always filled up fast. I’d barely squeezed in at the last minute, much to Soraya’s delight.
I was about to admit defeat and admit that I didn’t know—because it was either that or crack a witty joke and I was fresh out of those, when Soraya tapped a single word on her heavily scribbled on, and more heavily doodled, notebook.
“Uh, affinities?” My voice lilted a bit at the end making my answer a question.
“Correct,” Prof. Hardin agreed. “Magic is difficult to use at even the best of times, but with an affinity for a particular area, such as Mr. Marshal’s affinity for friends who are better at paying attention than he is, one can manage spellwork under less favorable circumstances. Sometimes even with relative ease within the breadth of their affinities.”
I sighed as he went on and slumped into my seat. A lot of this stuff I already knew—everyone did. Working with magic was hands down one of the hardest things anyone anywhere could do and unless you had an affinity for a particular area, or rarely areas, casting spells meant working your ass off. All that stuff I knew and understood completely. It was all the theoretical crap the Prof. got into about why affinities worked the way they did or didn’t that threw me off. It seemed like every dead white guy out there had something to say on the subject and keeping them all straight was a pain in the ass.
It also didn’t matter a whole lot to me. I was majoring in magical theory for two reasons. One, my freaking antlers. They’re part of a curse put on me that cut me off from any affinity I might have for magic. So long as the curse was on me, I was stuck with a pair of antlers and a complete inability to cast even the most basic spells unless I was willing to dedicate countless hours to study and practice. I had a lot of magical potential stored up inside of me, but with no affinities, I had no easy means of actually putting it to use. Which I’d thought was what Magical Theory was supposed to be about.
Two, my freaking antlers again. See that curse also got me a full ride scholarship to Forester University. Not exactly prestigious and in the middle of freaking nowhere, but hey, anything to get away from my adopted family and on out my own. It seemed kind of like a joke to me that the school would pay so much money to teach someone cursed to have no affinities for magic to be a mage, but I wasn’t one to look a gift horse in the mouth. This was only my second semester at Forester, but I’d already learned the first rule of academia: if it makes sense, it’s wrong.
Okay, maybe there’s still another reason for picking this area of study. I had hoped, maybe hoped a little too much, that by learning the fundamentals of magical theory, I’d be able to devise a spell that would lift my curse. I’d be lying if I didn’t say I dreamed about one day ripping away the curse and discovering a plethora of magical affinities beneath it, like flipping a switch and becoming a superhero mage. At best I probably had one or two affinities and probably for something silly like butterfly magic. If that was the case though—I’d take it. I wanted—no, needed—to know what I was capable of beneath the curse.
Hardin went on for a while longer before releasing everyone. He also mentioned something about a paper being due next week, but Soraya would have written it down, so I’d ask her what the assignment was later. Probably at the last minute because I’d forget about it.
I was halfway to the door when Prof. Hardin called my name again and this time beckoned me over to him. I exchanged glances with Soraya. She shrugged and we agreed to meet up in a bit at our usual lunch spot.
A few moments later it was just myself, Prof. Hardin, and his TA, Lilian She. She was a cute, leggy Chinese girl with a pair of no-nonsense glasses and a professional dress that failed to hide her tight yet supple physique. Soraya had told me that Lilian was the lucky one who got to grade all our regular papers.
I had to pull my eyes away from her to focus on the much less interesting, but no less intimidating, Prof. Hardin. He was lean, with dirty blonde hair, glasses, and dressed like you’d expect a college professor to dress, only a little more stylish. He somehow made his classically academic attire look like a fashion statement.
“Sir?” I asked when I drew up to him.
“It’s Caleb, isn’t it?” The Professor asked, looking at something on his tablet. “Caleb Marshal?”
I swallowed. Shit, was I in trouble? “Yes.”
“You emailed me about your curse at the beginning of the semester?”
I thought that it still was the beginning of the semester, though now that I thought about it I guess we were a few weeks in. Dang, it was going fast. “Yes, sir.”
“It’s a remarkable bit of spellwork that’s clinging to you,” he said looking up from what I realized was some sort of diagram. “No amateur put this o
n you. Does your family have any history with the fae, or perhaps you had a grandparent who offended a dragon?”
A dragon? He thought that a dragon had laid this curse on me? Shit, I was never going to break it. “Not that I know of. I bounced around foster homes as a little kid and then was adopted. I’ve had these,” I tapped my antlers, “for as long as anyone can remember.”
“Remarkable,” he said. “I would very much like to make a case study of your curse, if you don’t mind.”
A what?
My confusion must have shown on my face because he continued. “I want to study your curse and make a theory about how it works.”
That didn’t sound so bad. It also didn’t sound like he was interested in breaking it. “I’d rather just get rid of it.”
“Well after I write my paper on it, I’d be more than happy to test my theories.”
I grimaced. “That doesn’t sound too bad.”
“I’d also be willing to give you extra credit in my class for your participation,” he went on. “Given that without any affinities of your own the practical exams are going to be particularly challenging for you.”
Wait. “You mean, I won’t be able to pass your class unless I let you study my curse?”
He shrugged. “Not necessarily, but I would think that today’s lesson would have made you more keenly aware—without affinities, magic is very difficult to work with.”
“But you think you can break my curse.” I said. “If you did that, then I’d be able to know what my affinities are. I’d be able to give your course a fair try, like the other students.”
“Caleb,” he said, slowly. “Do you understand how rare a curse as complex as yours is? It’s a real work of craftsmanship. It was either crafted by a very skilled mage or a nonhuman entity altogether. Either way, there is much to be learned by studying it.”
“I don’t mean to be stubborn here, but I’d rather just get rid of the thing. I mean, great for studying it and all, but knowing about it’s not really going to help me, is it?”
“Not yet,” he admitted. “But think long term. What about graduate school?”
Okay, I liked college, but I really wasn’t into all this theoretical crap. And where the hell was I supposed to find money for graduate school? I was barely skating by on my scholarship. If Prof. Hardin got his way it was sounding like I’d be stuck with my curse for years to come and work was hard to come by for a guy with antlers. Sure, employers aren’t supposed to discriminate but you know what, they sure as hell do. Especially in a small town like Woodhurst, Texas.
“Not really interested in it,” I admitted. “Mostly I just want to break my curse.”
He pursed his lips.
“Give it some thought,” he said after a minute. “And get back to me.”
He strode from the room, and Lilian followed after him, pausing to hold the door open for me. She gave me a sympathetic look before we parted and went our separate ways.
Chapter Two
Happy Burger was the best restaurant in Woodhurst. Admittedly this wasn’t saying much when one considered the town’s diminutive population, but hey, the burgers were good. Their mascot though, was absolutely terrifying. They probably would have gotten more business without the damn thing scaring away half of their customers. Someone had tried to make a cheeseburger into a smiley face and ended up creating something that belonged in a cautionary cartoon about child predators.
Soraya had introduced me to the place when I’d first arrived in town. She was a local girl and knew all the best places to get food or entertainment. Meeting her had probably been the luckiest thing that had ever happened to me. And that was why, despite her serious hotness, I couldn’t bring myself to make a pass at her.
Soraya wore baggy jeans and a big old hoodie and her hair hung in a glossy curtain of waves down to her midback. She was golden skinned, average height, and above average curvature with heavy breasts, pronounced hips and butt, with a tiny waist—most of which was completely hidden beneath her baggy clothing, which was almost enough to make her look heavy. Almost. If I hadn’t seen her without her hoodie on a few memorable occasions, I might never have known the glorious figure she was hiding beneath those layers. She didn’t get up from our usual table when I walked in but smiled at me, dark eyes twinkling. Damn I had it so bad.
“What did Prof. Hard-on want?” she asked when I sat down at our table. “Anything about your curse?”
I brought her up to speed, pausing only to order a triple stack burger when the waitress interrupted.
“That dick,” she said when I was finished. “What are you going to do?”
“What else can I do? Let him study me, I guess.” It wasn’t like there were a whole lot of alternatives here. Deny him and fail the course. Accept the extra credit and maybe one day he’d break it for me and get his name in some journal that nobody but other professors would read.
“Anyway, what are you up to this evening? Anything fun?”
She grinned. “The planetary alignment is just right for me to try summoning a summer sprite.”
“It’s February.”
“Shut up, I know that.”
“Then shouldn’t you be trying for one in, I don’t know, summer?”
“I don’t want to wait until summer to try this when I’ve got a good opportunity right here and now.” She sat up straighter in her seat. “This time tomorrow I’ll have my first familiar. Or at least my first contract.”
Soraya’s father had been a powerful bruja, a Latin American form of mage. I say had been because we were pretty sure he as dead. He’d skipped town years ago to try and make it big, and then stopped calling home. I had no idea how Soraya felt about him, but considering she was majoring in thaumaturgical contracts—the specialization of binding magical agreements between magical creatures and magical practitioners—it seemed to me that she was following, if not exactly in his footsteps, then at least the same general path. I had no doubt that Soraya would become an accomplished and respected warlock in the next few years.
“Cool,” I said. “Want me there?”
She offered me an apologetic smile. “Yeah, but you can’t. It’s got to just be me, or the spell won’t work.”
My phone chimed with a text message. It was from an unknown number and said simply: check your email.
“Huh, that’s weird.” I said, holding it up for Soraya to see before following the instructions. Checking email on my phone was not my favorite but it was quicker than waiting to get home. Compared to my fellow students, I was a technological idiot.
Several emails had piled up in my inbox but the one at the top was from Lilian, Prof. Hardin’s assistant, and it had one hell of a big attachment. No way was I opening that on my phone. I read through the email, got about halfway through, and then had to reread it. It wasn’t that it was long, it just warranted a rereading.
“What is it?” Soraya asked, leaning forward across the table.
I looked up and into her eyes, which brought me back to reality. That and the way her hoodie stretched across her hefty breasts. God, I bet they were just as gorgeous as her face.
She blushed and brushed a wavy lock back behind her ear and I realized that I was staring. “Uh, here.”
I handed the phone over and she read through it. Then she did a double take and stared back at me.
“Lilian sent you Prof. Hardin’s research on your curse,” she said, then looked back at the phone. “I mean, not just his research, but his theorized spell—oh my God, Caleb! This is awesome!”
I could only nod. Apparently, Lilian hadn’t thought that Prof. Hardin had the right to keep it from me. And he had been keeping it from me. Just from what I’d sent him he’d already worked out a possible way to break the curse and he’d wanted me to go on living with it, struggling to cast even the most basic spells, just so that he could keep studying it.
“That bastard already knew how to fix me,” I muttered.
“Yeah but Lilian officially r
ocks,” Soraya said. “This looks like it’s going to be a major spell to cast. You’ll definitely want some help.”
I nodded eagerly. Soraya was still learning her magical affinities but there was no doubt which of us was the better spellcaster. Even if I hadn’t been cursed there was no way I’d be able to keep up with her. Soraya’s mind simply soaked up spells and magical instructions like a sponge.
“This is going to be an awesome night!” Soraya exclaimed.
“Hell yeah it will, whose ready to party?” asked a new voice and Soraya’s stepsister, Scarlett, stepped around me to stand at the edge of our table. “Who’s bringing the beer?”
Whereas Soraya was dark, curvy, Scarlett put me in mind of a cheetah. She was Latina too, but with a lighter complexion and a smattering of freckles across her small, feline face. Her frame was lean and athletic—if she hadn’t dropped out of high school this year, she might have managed a track scholarship to Forester. Her clothing was about as opposite from Soraya’s as could be and still be called clothes, all tight and short and strategically ripped. The only thing classy about her borderline sluttish attire was the elegant silver necklace that hung down between her modest breasts.
Soraya had once explained to me that it was a family heirloom, or at least, an heirloom from Scarlett’s family. It had belonged to Scarlett great grandmother and been passed down the family line all the way to the wild child standing next to me.
“Go away, Scarlett,” Soraya said, handing me back my phone.
Scarlett ignored her and slid into the booth beside her stepsister, pressing in close. She lowered her gaze and batted her eyes at me. “Hey, Caleb. How are you?”
I shrugged. “Alright I guess.”
She grinned and bit her lip. “That’s good. You guys got big plans tonight, huh? Where’s the party going down?”
“Life is about more than parties, Scarlett,” Soraya said through clenched teeth.