The Archmage: Chapter Twenty-Five (Patreon)

It took me the better part of two weeks to reach competency with both the compression of mental packets, and the method to slip them into dreams. 

Even then, I wouldn’t call myself a master of either. I didn’t think I’d be able to cast a divination through a sleeping mind, in order to seek the hidden meanings that lay in some dreams. 

But I was functional enough to cast this spell. And if there was one thing I’d proved since I started my career as an enchanter, it was that functionality trumped everything. 

During this time, I spent my days teaching, having my students start on their first foci for enchanters, and getting a start on burner creation for general witchcraft.

Donovan created a simple ward projection burner. It was horribly inefficient, and just projected a flat force ward in front of him, but he actually did it himself, and it was obvious that he was proud of it. 

Truthfully, creating something that projected a force wall would have been about four times cheaper, and infinitely simpler, but I didn't tell him that. After all, my first spells had been inefficient too, and I wasn’t a master of getting enchantments and wards to work together. This was the start of his path, of course it wouldn’t work well. 

Alyssa Breech, the girl who wanted to use burners to augment her potion creation, got her first success during this period. It wasn’t anything staggering, but she managed to create a three part burner that could cast a simple body enhancement spell, then used those as a part of the potion to create a body enhancement brew. 

The resulting potion wasn’t twice as strong, but it was still stronger than it should have been. All in all, it was another good start.

Willow surprised me. She wasn’t sure what she was going to work on yet, though she’d told me her idea, of course. She created a leather strap around her wrist that would fire out the pulse of clinging Aura, like I’d suggested. 

“I’m not happy with it,” she admitted when she turned it in. “It works, but I want to create a comprehensive network, that allows them to all work together as a part of a better whole, not just… This.” 

“That’s a fair goal,” I told her. “Look up the Network spell, when you get a chance. It may be a bit beyond your skills to start nesting spells just yet, but it’s still worth knowing, and you’ll reach that level of skill in a year or two.” 

She nodded and wrote down the name of the spell. 

Isadora, of course, decided the best way to make a foci was to make a spell that created a whip of force. No problem on its own, except that the tip of the spell dug spiked barbs into whoever it hit.

The force whip actually looked mostly like her own work, but the spiked tip… wasn’t. I thought it might have been some sort of coded backhand message that her parents had told her to send. 

Then again, I might have been overthinking it. She might have just wanted a brutal weapon. Who was to say?

On the weekends, Osheen and I worked on the improved version of the staff that I’d be trading to Mellt, Oberon, and using for myself. 

I’d hoped that Tara would also help, and she did from time to time, but she wound up being busy with a lot of her own preparations for when she eventually went public. 

It wasn’t all work, though. Osheen and I made sure that we never spent more than six hours a day on the weekends working, and spent the rest with one another. 

I was pretty sure we’d gone to every restaurant in Hallowbrooke already, but Osheen managed to prove me wrong, bringing us to three new places, the best of which was a brand new fish and oyster restaurant that actually had its own small magically controlled waterbed. 

The food was amazing, and sent me on another long ramble about how the spreading of industrialized magic would be beneficial for our country. 

But the worst part of the time period, by far, was the political aspects of the greater nation.

Castor, the archmage who’d been booted from the Senate for attempting to kill Eira – at least as far as the public was concerned – managed to scrape together enough favors, bribes, and other political acumen to get his position back.

Officially, he was exonerated because he was able to prove that the attacker had been an illusion of one of his family members trying to discredit him and get him removed. 

That sent ripples out through people, who started to speculate that the terrorist attack on the Elide house had been internal fracturing over who would get to be their next archmage – rumors that were only made worse as their older, now crippled, archmage still refused to completely abdicate his position of head of house, despite endorsing three different candidates in the race for archmage status. 

Two of the people he endorsed were force sorcerers, but the third was a face that was all too familiar – Travis Hawthorne. 

Frankly, I had no idea how to unpack that particular can of worms. 

“It would be better to have Travis than someone else,” Osheen pointed out. “You and Tara both already know him. He’s a prick, but he’s also mostly reasonable.” 

That was how I found myself headed into his office one weekday.

“Ah, Evan,” he said, smiling. “Did you come to check up on the enchantments that power Yesgol?” 

“Why?” I asked. 

“I’d asked you to during our first staff meeting of the year,” he said, raising an eyebrow. 

“Ah, sorry,” I said. “I’ve honestly been absurdly busy, keeping a handle on my own power, teaching, and building some offerings for Mellt, Lady of Lightning.” 

I had almost said Oberon, before I thought better of it. He didn’t need to know that particular secret.

“I see,” the older man said, a faintly wry smile on his face. “Well, I’d still like you to take a look – I’m certain your planar connections would be useful.” 

“Sure,” I said. 

If nothing else, it would let me know how to wreck the enchantments, when the time came. 

“While I have you here,” Travis said. “I had a question – you were going for the realm-reaching arch-star, and I thought you’d actually managed to pull it off. Is that right?” 

“No,” I lied. “Well, yes? It’s true that I wanted it, but I wound up settling for spell storage. It’s still immensely useful.” 

“You suggested to me last year that you’d done it,” he said mildly. 

“I was bluffing to push you,” I said. “I don’t know if you noticed, but you’re a rather demanding teacher. I can’t blame you – you put me into a sink or swim environment, and I swam, or at least, I like to think I did. But I figured out that if I pushed hard and made myself seem strong, I would be strong.” 

Travis’ lips curled into a smile and he nodded. 

“Good. That’s one of the lessons I try to impart.” 

“Speaking of arch-stars,” I said, wanting to get to the point of my visit before the conversation wandered too far away. “I heard of your endorsement. Congratulations!” 

He tilted his head at me and smiled. 

“Why thank you, Evan,” he said. “I will admit, it came as a surprise to me. It seems the house believes that they need to throw more support behind witchcraft.” 

“I would agree,” I said, and Travis snorted a laugh. 

“On a serious note, though,” I continued. “Is there anything I can do to assist you in becoming the new archmage?” 

Travis leaned back and steepled his fingers together over his chest. 

“Given your negative reactions towards the use of aura sparks and imbued items, I’m surprised that you’re even willing to endorse me,” he admitted. “I rather figured you were here to try and interfere.” 

“I hate what this country does to maintain its power,” I said. “But you’re pragmatic above all. I’d rather have someone who I know is competent, and who has at least some of the same goals as me.” 

“How reasonable,” Travis said. “But no. Star formation potions have been handed down to all three of us, but that’s only allowed me to form my fourth star. Unless you happen to have access to the knowledge that can transform a base aura spark into an archmage star formation potion, there’s not much you can do.” 

Oracle sent me a mental image of his aura, and sure enough, there was a fourth arch-star floating there. 

It was the contingency arch-star, and I was confused by that for a second, until I remembered exactly what he was – a foci mage. 

Automatically being able to twist his aura to power foci would be incredibly useful for him. More than useful, it might have just taken him from a strong and dangerous mage to a truly terrifying one. 

“Why not do it the old fashioned way?” I asked. “We could duel, and you could use that to push yourself past your limits and compress your aura.” 

“Who do you think I am, some prodigy who can just form one in a few months?” he laughed. “No, one of the disadvantages of the star formation potions is that it makes your aura increasingly resistant to compressing in the ordinary method. I’ll never move past the fourth star without another potion.” 

I narrowed my eyes at him, and he held his hands up in a display of innocence. 

“I’m quite serious,” he said. “It’s one of the things that stops us from having an all-out internal war. House Elide would only be able to have a secondary archmage because of the tragedy at the main house.”

“Let me guess – there’s only one archmage level potion?” I asked. 

“Quite so,” he said. “None of us know who’s going to get it, but it doesn’t matter. We’ll each need several months to get our auras used to the new compression and power before we can take it.” 

“I see,” I said neutrally. “Well, I’m not about to go raiding the vaults for you, but if you need some assistance, I may be willing to help you. I’d rather see you as the new archmage than another sorcerer.” 

“Of course,” he agreed. “Though… I should say, if I do manage to impress him enough to gain the potion, you should consider joining House Hawthorne. It would be a significant bolster to have a powerful enchanter like you, as well as a competent sorcerer. With me in the pilot seat of house Elide, and you as a supporter, I fully believe we could steer the nation in the right direction.” 

“Oh?” I asked, genuinely interested to hear him out. I wasn’t going to accept, but I did want to know what he thought of as a better future. 

“On the first day of my class, I made it clear that lazy nobles would not be tolerated,” the older man said, his dark eyes burning. “And that is what our system has produced. I want to create a system where the failing nobles are used to empower the successful ones, much as we do with the commoners now. A world where the cream rises to the top, while the rest are stripped of power and privilege. Everyone in their place, not by right of birth, but by right of skill and competence.” 

I took a slight breath at that. 

That was dangerous, in part because it was almost reasonable. If you looked at things from a top-down perspective, looked at things in terms of pure numbers, it made sense. 

But it had one fatal flaw – it forgot that those who weren’t competent were still people. No matter how much they failed. No matter if I disagreed with them. No matter if they wrecked their own lives. No matter if their lives were wrecked by chance. 

They were still people. People who deserved the dignity and respect of being treated as a person, not just as a resource to keep the wheels grinding. 

“I’ll think about it,” was all I said, and he nodded. 

We made a bit of small talk, and I promised that I’d give the enchantments over Yesgol a check over during the winter solstice break, then left to go find Tara. 

I’d completed my lessons with the hag, after all. 

It was time to create the completed spell.