The Archmage: Chapter Forty-Eight (Patreon)

I sat in the cave, my belt, staff, gun, and cloak all folded neatly next to me. In front of me sat three items: a crystal, traded to me by Obereon, and a black slate tablet filled with angelic magic, traded to me by Draven, and a blank journal. 

There were going to be copies made of my first three journals, I already knew that. And Osheen would eventually be pressured to release the fourth journal, if for no other reason than that it would contain the notes I’d made about growing the new aura trees. That meant I’d needed to leave it in our flat, and would have to write down future thoughts somewhere else. 

I wasn’t focused on them, however, as I was channeling my focus to Oracle, speaking to the Silver Queen. We had spoken for nearly an hour at this point, and our negotiations were winding down. As we finally finished, Draven’s owl – I’d never actually learned its name, now that I thought about it – fluttered down and squawked at me, hooting out that I was needed, and soon. 

I nodded Oracle’s head, asking where, and how to get there through the Wandering Path. Once I had the details as sorted as I could, I returned my focus to the real world, where Osheen and Bridgette were putting the finishing touches on the ritual. It was a simple one, designed to use Bridgette’s recharge to convert heat into aura, and feed power into a spell. It sat, circling around a stacked pile of wood, which Osheen lit with a flick. I touched the first of the artifacts to activate it. I sat down and closed my eyes.

It barely took any time at all, and then we dressed., then strode out of the cave, staff in hand. 

We each activated our respective enhancement spells and took off towards Hallowbrooke at a run. It would have been faster to fly, but flight was too conspicuous, and the last thing we wanted to do was draw attention to the cave. It might have been well defended, but secrecy was ultimately still its greatest defense, and it was critical to not draw any attention to it now. 

As we arrived in town and activated Draven’s portal, we did start flying, shooting through the blank gray space that was the Wandering Path, bursting out in a small clearing and flying over to where the coalition of archmages that were friendly to us were gathered. 

To my surprise, there was a new archmage standing only a few dozen feet away, a tall elvish woman who I thought I recognized as Britney Byron.

 I’d seen her simulacra of earth and water at the last archmage meeting, but this was my first time seeing her in the flesh, and she was… Imposing. 

She was nearly seven feet tall, and while most elves had a lithe, almost too skinny physique, Byron was possibly the most muscular person I’d ever seen. She was certainly the most muscular mage I’d ever seen, and I’d have put her against any bodybuilder. Apparently, she’d decided that she needed to spend her century and a half of life as an archmage in the gym.  

I just hoped that meant that she hadn’t spent the time practicing with her aura and magic, but I doubted it. 

With our third eyes, Oracle and I examined the land around us, and quickly figured out why Byron was standing several feet back from the group. 

The Byron estate might have, technically speaking, begun right there, but there was more to it than that. As an earth mage, Byron had carved countless rituals into the earth below the estate, massive defensive arrays that she could call upon to empower herself with only the slightest flicker of aura. 

From my vantage point in the air, I could only see about half of the spell, and what I could see was only the topmost layer, since I had no doubt that the earth mage had additional layers under the… earth. 

But of what I could see, it looked like massively overbuilt armor spells, which wasn’t surprising. Her magic was noted for being broad in scope, but imprecise. If she could turtle up and just squash everything that was coming for her, she would be able to take on even archmages who were normally a threat to her. 

I immediately set my cloak’s divination spells to analyzing the spellcraft. I knew it could only break or inhibit the layers it could detect, but that would be better than nothing. 

Outside of the massive earthen rituals, there was also a wardline. It was clearly an emergency defense, since it was draining power at a frankly ludicrous rate, and without the massive aura crystal to support it, I suspected that it wouldn’t even hold for an hour, less under a repeated archmage assault. Still, that must have been what gave her the confidence to come out and meet us. 

“Ah, Evander Tailor,” Byron called out as Osheen and I landed next to the group. “Are you here to try and convince us to stand down? Because we are willing to negotiate, but not if you’re going to continue with this foolishness of tearing apart the parliament and nobility.” 

“Oh?” I asked, and Eira let out a very undignified snort. 

“She wants to establish a new council, and create a fifty-fifty split of power between commoner-elected representatives like me and the nobility,” she informed me. 

“That won’t work, and you know it,” Osheen said. “The days of the nobility are over.” 

“They don’t have to be,” Byron said, a wan smile on her face. “Besides, I don’t think you understand our negotiating perspective. You might think we’re cornered rats, but that’s a very incorrect assumption.” 

She waved her hand, activating a spell on her ring that must have sent out a signal, because people began to slowly emerge from the house. 

Johnathan Castor, the imposing storm mage who had once acted as the cat’s paw of the nobility within the senate was the first to emerge. Lightning flickered around his wrists, and an imbued necklace that was covered in water runes.

After him emerged Trenton Elide. While he was in a wheelchair, the glowing force magic dome around him, with built in powerful force cannon spells integrated smoothly in made it very clear that the illusions of weakness he’d been putting on for the papers and nobility had been just that – an illusion. 

The half-metal bird, half human form of Justin Hastins emerged, his feathers glowing with a soft gray light along their edges, elemental magic that sharpened and made them all the more deadly. 

Four against five, we should have had the advantage… 

Should have. 

The next person to emerge from the manor was an earth sorcerer I didn’t recognize, followed by a water sorcerer. Each one was armed with several foci, in an all too familiar style. While each of them did have the full suite of five arch-stars that signified them as archmages, they were still less impressive than the ones who’d held the title for a long time. 

The cause of the familiar foci stepped out next. Travis Hawthorne’s aura blazed strongly and densely around him, and his own personal suite of foci made him look far more in place among the old archmages than the new ones. 

On his heels was another familiar face – the wife of Edward Elide, who’d nearly killed Osheen, and was a body and force mage every bit as fierce as her late husband. I felt a bit bad that I couldn’t even remember her name, which was perhaps a touch ridiculous, given we were about to fight her.

“My house’s newest archmages,” Trenton Elide said, his voice slightly distorted by the force dome around him. 

A woman who was fused with what looked like a mass of living vines and flowers stepped out next, and the spring magic that laced her aura was impressive. While it wasn’t a match for the magic of the Spring Queen, it was more than a match for my own faerie power. 

She walked arm in arm with a man who had long, curling rams horns, and feet that looked like a goat. For a moment, I thought he was a satyr, like Eira, but the oily magic and fifth archstar disabused me of that notion – he was a human who had fused with a demon of some sort. I didn’t know what sort, but demons were a plane who’s mysteries I’d never had much of a chance to look into. 

“My dear niece and nephew in law,” Justin Hastings said, a sneer on his face. “While I get why you’re so arrogant, Tailor, how does it feel to know that your three years of struggle can be matched with a single potion?” 

I stared at him impassively, not rising to the bait. 

A single witch stepped out, her hands wreathed with rituals that were clearly some form of storm magic. It relied far more heavily on sorcerer principles than those of faerie storm magic, which gave me some hope – my weather defenses should be able to block her purely human magic.

“My daughter in law,” Castor said, crossing his arms.

A group of four exited the house next, and I let out a sigh of relief. All four of them were elvish sorcerers, and the magic that they had circling their bodies was strong, but not on the level of the older archmages, and they didn’t even have the advantages of Travis’ foci to help them out. Among them, I recognized flame, force, and air mages, but the fourth had a rune in a language I’d never learned. 

I didn’t want to dismiss them from my consideration, of course. They were still powerful mages. They simply weren’t on the level of the true monsters out here. 

“My own house’s contributions,” Byron said, a smile spreading across her face. 

I thought that would be it, but a squad of three fire mages stepped out, and I saw Osheen’s face grow pale next to me. It actually took me a second to realize why, as none of them seemed particularly impressive. While they held the archmage status, technically, and each had an imbued item, they seemed the least dangerous out of everyone to emerge thus far, and I’d seen Osheen use flame magic that was far more impressive. 

“Hello, cousin,” one of them said, and it clicked. 

House Roark hadn’t officially nominated a new archmage yet, but with the panic induced by my revelation, they’d reached into their stores of potions to forcibly push three up to that status. 

I allowed my eyes to sweep over the group. 

Eighteen enemy archmages, against the five of us. Even if a few of them weren’t on par with Eira or Draven, they still had a massive numerical advantage, worse than Draven’s worst-case scenario of fifteen.

Not only that, but most of them were armed with the weapons of their house, and all of them already had their opening salvo prepared. This was going to be a difficult fight. It might not even be a possible fight.

But I’d rather be chained in the pits of the Fallen Void than give in now. I’d come too far, gone further than anyone in our entire history. Even if I died, I would live on.

It was like I’d told them, at the very end of my message. They couldn’t kill me in any way that mattered.

“I’ll give you one chance to surrender. Step up to the ward, and we won’t attack you. You can become a prisoner, and will even be able to retain a portion of your power,” Byron said sweetly. 

For a moment, contemplation crossed Draven’s face, then he shook his head. None of the others even seemed to consider it. 

“Then die!” shouted Byron. “Atta–”

Before she could even finish the word attack, a bullet ripped through her brain.