The Abjurer: Chapter 14.5-15 (Patreon)

George idly tapped his fingers on his desk, bored and curious. It wasn’t like Travis to be late to class, so something must have been holding him up. He was already a bit annoyed with how early this class was, so when Travis walked in late, with Evan next to him, George let out a loud snort.

“Holding up the professor, Tailor?”

Evan gave him a strange look, and George frowned, not sure how to interpret it.

“Mr. Tailor believes that he’s created a powerful enough suit of abjurative magic to take on the entire class at once,” Travis said.

George’s eyebrows shot up. There was no way that was true – his own best attempts at abjuration had been enough to fend off most of the common force, fire, and ice spells, but there were people with lightning in here. Not to mention, there was no way he’d been able to afford any of the really good components that were needed to get any real spellcraft done.

“Who wants to go first?” Travis asked.

“I will,” George said, standing.

Another strange look entered Evan’s eyes, but it wasn’t the same nerves they’d had in the duel two years ago. It was… anticipatory, maybe?

George drew a wand from his belt and snapped off a series of various force and flame spells at Evan.

They all dissolved as soon as they got close, and Evan tilted his cloaked head.

The Roark family’s newest henchman – Victoria, he was pretty sure – rose then and flexed her hand.

Lightning exploded from her palm, congealing out of the rings on her fingers.

Evan waved his hand and the lightning froze in mid-air. He grunted, and then the lightning exploded back towards the girl, though he directed it to the side.

It still left a searing line in Yesgol.

George frowned. He must have picked up a sponsor who was happy to help him set up some of these enchantments.

Well, he could play with that.

He drew his saber as Jerimiah, Victoria, and even Travis all let loose at once.

Jerimiah’s larger ward flashed across the classroom, separating the students from Travis and Evan. Victoria fired another lightning attack, and George let loose a gout of fire. Travis unleashed a complex series of multicolored beams.

Evan simply stood there until the very last second, then he moved like lightning. He shot across the room, out of the way of the beams. The lightning and force redirected to hit Travis, who was forced to erect a two layered diamond shaped shield to defend himself.

Evan was still moving, though. He pressed his hand against the ward, and the whole thing shuddered.

Then Evan vanished, and the ward exploded.

George gaped. He could see, maybe, if Evan had used his divination to read the ward, and abjuration to move it around a bit, and layered the anti-ward effect of the Assassin’s cloak, how he may be able to slip past his cousin’s wards.

But shatter it? His divination and abjuration skills would both have to be far beyond George’s estimation, and he’d have to have some sort of way to drain the ambient aura in the area.

Then he felt a paralytic spell spike him in the back. He crashed to the floor, where he could see Evan, visible once more.

He stood calmly, his cloak flaring out behind him and thrumming with power. With one hand, he redirected a series of wood spears to just miss him, while the other caught a fireball and reflected it back at the user, and then he blurred away in a burst of speed as a lightning bolt cracked in the air where he’d been moments ago.

George warily got to his feet, and saw Evan had been backed into one corner of the room. Jerimiah had thrown a ball at his feet, which snapped up into a circular containment ward, which seemed to be holding Evan in for now.

Evan was still dodging, redirecting, or reflecting every attack that came his way. A pair of strange, green blobs from Travis managed to slip past his defenses, but then a ward flared to life around Evan, and the blobs splashed against it harmlessly. The next instant, the ward was gone to save power.

It still wasn’t enough to get him free of the containment ward, though, and George breathed a sigh of relief. It shouldn’t be possible for anyone short of an archmage to break that ward. It was one of his family’s most specialty containment wards.

He drew a wand, and glanced at Victoria.

“Dual lightning?”

“Sure. On three. One. Two. Three!”

They both released a blast of lightning at Evan. He spread his arms, and the ward flared to life. The two lightning blasts arced over his head, then slammed back into Jerimiah’s ward.

Evan vanished again, and Jerimiah’s ward exploded.

George stared, nearly hyperventilating. Had Evan somehow become an archmage?

No.

That was ridiculous. He must have just created a set of archmage level artifacts.

But even still, to manage that… Jeremiah’s wardcrafting was nearing that level, and he’d formed a fourth arch-star, but George was still behind him.

How had EVAN done it?

Who was his sponsor? Eira Talik? Draven?

He reached into his pocket and withdrew one of his most powerful contingencies – an Archmage level item of his own. An imbued item, made from three peasant souls. They’d been paid well for their accidental deaths, and now they could serve him better.

As the ring began to glow, he unleased a massive wave of power. Red light coated the entire half of the room that Evan had to be in.

Except for a small bubble. Evan’s ward had snapped around him, and he’d turned visible again. The ward broke, but it seemed to be constructed strangely – rather than being one solid plate, like Jerimiah’s or his families, this was made of dozens of interlocking plates. Each one was easy to break under the power of his ring, but they just formed another one as soon as one broke.

But there was no way Evan’s wards, no matter how strange, could hold against his Light of Doom for long.

And then Evan did something impossible.

Again.

The light flared, and then exploded backwards, coating over the other half of the room.

George’s body felt like it was on fire, and his mind felt like it was melting. He cut off the light as soon as he could, and fell to the ground.

Evan lowered the hood of his cloak and looked at Travis, who had layered himself in four shields to protect himself from the light, then gave a nervous smile.

“Sorry, I didn’t realize it would be so powerful. I should have just broken the spell. Do I pass, though?”

Travis’ shields slowly lowered, like a spider untangling themselves from the center of their web, and he let out a slow breath.

“Fine. But I want to look at those spell diagrams.”

No surprise there. George also wanted a look at them. He was pretty sure a design that was capable of holding against an archmage level attack – no, not just holding… Reflecting – would be enough to elevate Evan to at least a moderate level in the nobility.

Fallen void, he needed to get those designs. Most nobles just relied on force armor for physical defense, along with ghost plate to protect their metaphysical selves. The two spells were versatile, flexible, and strong, and could scale upwards to meet power as needed.

But he knew Evan. The man had nearly passed out after a handful of foci and glyph uses in their first year, and even if he’d increased his Aura density like Victoria had, he wouldn’t have had the power to pull off that display.

That was either an artifact or an imbued item, and George couldn’t tell which.

And the fact he was able to make elegant use of power to counter everything they could do?

That was terrifying.

No wonder his father had ordered him to play nice and make up with Evan.

“No,” Evan said.

Well, the boy wasn’t stupid, George had to give him that, if nothing else. He forced himself to his feet.

“My father would be happy to extend an invitation to let you join the Heenling family in exchange for the spell diagrams and information,” he said. “I’m sure he would. He’d be happy to have an enchanter of your caliber in the family.”

What he had to say next left a bitter taste in his mouth, but he had to say it. He knew his father would take it out of his hide if he didn’t.

“I know you prefer the company of men. That wouldn’t be a problem. You could take anyone of our generation – Jerimiah, Alonzo, or even me, if you wanted.”

Evan gave him a strange look, one that almost looked insulted, and George felt a flare of anger. He was offering Evan what should be everyone’s dream, and he had the gall to just look insulted?

“I’m perfectly happy with the relationship I have,” he said. “And you’re not the first to offer a noble position to me. The answer is no. I don’t want anything to do with the nobility.”

George shook his head. Some people. Evan must be one of those geniuses who understood their subject perfectly, but had no idea how the world really worked.

“The offer is still open.”

“No thanks,” Evan said. He looked at Travis. “Our deal was that if I was able to take on the class and you, that I’d be able to pass both. I’ll be taking that passing grade now.”

With that, Evan turned away from them all and walked out of the class.

Travis let out a low curse, and George found himself nodding along with the sentiment.

“He reminds me far too much of Archmage Luis,” Jerimiah rumbled. “Do you think he’s a Dhampir?”

“No,” Travis said. “There’s no relation. They just have the same attitude and style, I think, though Evan’s lacks refinement. He reminds me of Eira Talik, when she went here.”

George shook his head.

“He reminds me of father more than anyone,” he said. “The quiet certainty that he’s more powerful than anyone in the room. The enchantments and wards weaving themselves around him like a sorcerer weaves aura…”

“You do realize that all of the people you compared him to are all –” Victoria started to say.

“Archmages,” Travis said quietly, a hint of fear in his voice. “He isn’t one, but if he keeps on like this… He may just become one.”

“I’m aware,” George said sourly.

~~~

I let out a frustrated sigh as I left the room. That had gone terribly. My cloak was running on fumes after that display, and if I hadn’t added in the ambient aura recharging function, it would have certainly died in the fight.

Not only that, but I wasn’t even sure if I’d get credit for passing my course early or not. I’d wanted to leave before the cloak’s power was completely gone, and I hadn’t been mentally up for an argument with Travis over passing or not.

There were only a few good things out of the experience. I’d gotten to test my growth spell and add quite a few new spells into its storage bank, but it was pretty clear that it wasn’t going to work well in combat without time to adapt, which would take at least half a minute. Far too long in the heat of battle.

At least if I ever had to duel George again, I’d be able to beat him handily, unless he had another trick like that weird red light.

Lightning spells were still a big weakness for me. Even with all the power I’d woven into my cloak, they were still so powerful that they took at least a fifteenth of its reserve to stop or reflect.

Which, speaking of lightning…

I walked down to Lyn and Sarai’s room and knocked on the door.

“Good morning, Evan,” Lyn said as she opened it, sounding a touch confused as to why I was there. That was fair – I hadn’t been to their room in a long time. How long had it been? I’d certainly gone in my first year. Had I gone at all in my second year?

“How can I help you?” she asked after a moment, breaking me out of my mental haze.

“Oh, sorry,” I said. “I was hoping to recruit your skills as a metal mage, along with Sarai’s uncle.”

“Maybe?” she said. “Do you need more knives made, like you did last time?”

“Something like that,” I said. “I’m making a sword this time. It’s an abjuration blade.”

“Shouldn’t abjuration be a shield or something?”

“Not necessarily,” I said. “It can break through defenses just as well, after all.”

“I see,” Lyn said. “Well, I’m assuming that you can just pay Sarai’s uncle, but…”

“What do you want?” I asked.

“A booster, like the one you made for Osheen,” she said.

“I won’t be able to deliver that to you for a while. Not until next semester, at the very least. And I’ll need your help tomorrow.”

“That’s fine,” she said. “As long as I get it.”

“You will,” I said, shaking her hand.

After that, I was off to Hallowbrooke to gather as many components as I could buy.

Despite the fact that I’d been ignoring my loans for quite some time, and been selling spell bottles in my – rather limited – free time, my bank account was looking close to empty by the time I returned.

After that, I set about preparing the spell itself.

I hadn’t wanted to use the room where the king’s summoning spell had been, but at the end of the day, it had two benefits that outweighed my discomfort.

Firstly, it was isolated enough to allow for powerful magic to not interfere with any other spells.

Secondly, it was the home to a rift that had actually connected to the Starless Night not long ago, and was now connected to the power of the Silver Queen. The ambient Aura here was still stained with both of the powers, making it ideal for my spell.

The spell itself had many other components besides: The sample of power that would serve as anathema to the power of the spell came from the golem’s body, the summer magic that ran through it.

The sample for the faerie magic came from my armband. It had three functions built into it, but I’d only ever been able to identify one of them – whispering wind. I would be cutting off the most expensive of the function, and sacrificing it for the power of change that was a fundamental part of the autumnal magic.

Next to the armband was the gemstone acorns that I’d gotten from the aura manipulation array, adding extra autumnal theming, which was important in a spell like this. It would also add a considerable amount of power.

The sample of consumer magic was mixed throughout the concentration disrupting potion I’d painted on the floor, as well as the black stone that was all that was left of Phillip’s consumer, and the remainder of the bodies I’d gathered.

The last of the blue blood-cap mushrooms were all scattered throughout the spell to boost its power.

The silver bar that I’d also gotten from the aura manipulation array had been roughly split into four chunks.

The first chunk lay in the center, next to the bronze sword. I’d have Lyn shape it into a word in the language of old Bradlewyr – diofryd, to abjure.

The second one would be shaped into a mirrorlike shine, and placed in the part of the spell designed for reflection.

The third would need to be shaped into a hammer, which would lay in the spell disruption section.

And the final would be a scalpel, to be in the alteration section.

After that came the ninety-one – thirteen sevens – of the tiny Aura storage crystals that had done such damage to my bank account, each one connected to an identical set of capacitors and inductors.

Literally identical – I’d used a simple spell I’d learned in my first-year divination to copy them.

I’d mixed in a handful of other components as well – salt for purity, iron as an anathema to the Fae, red pepper flakes for protection, and a half a dozen other things besides.

With the components out of the way, the only thing left was the actual rune work and structure of the spell, which was quite similar to the one I’d used in my cloak –divination to copy spells into a memory bank, combined with the three standard types of abjuration spell, a spell to drain ambient aura for extra power and serve as an Aura tap to let the user recharge it themselves, and finally a bronze alteration spell to enhance the toughness of the blade.

The spell that interlinked the seven other spells was the growth spell – it was practically a necessity to allow the abjuration spells to function in such a basic form, and allow the recorded information in the memory banks to be useful.

It wasn’t the most complex spell I’d ever created, that still being the cloak itself, but it was almost as complex, and it was many, many times more powerful. I wasn’t even sure what a blade like this would go for if I sold it. Well over a million crowns, I was sure.

Assuming that the spell went right, of course.

A part of me was tempted to activate the spell here and now, but I’d agreed to double check Osheen’s work with his own spell first, and then he’d come here as backup.

I dusted my hands off and headed down to the workshop to meet Osheen.

The components in this had partially been looted from the aftermath of the battle against the behemoth, but the bulk of it actually came from Osheen’s magic. He had constructed several fires around the room, altering them with fire sorcery to glow in strange colors and have odd properties, like shedding little light. It took constant maintenance from his Aura to manage it, but Osheen had power to spare, and his active participation in the ritual would actually strengthen it.

Apart from that, there was one other exotic component as a part of the spell – the scale that I’d been planning to use to make water shields or armor for Osheen. He’d elected to use it as a thematic part of this spell – what would be more in line with protection from fire than a powerfully aligned water component?

This spell’s rune work was downright simple compared to the blade that I was constructing – which is to say, it was still far more complicated than anything I’d done in the first year, and part of my second year, but still solidly within the realm of Adept or Journeyman mages.

It consisted of three interlocking parts. The first was a heat-based divination spell, which would be constantly active, and powered by the second part. Said part came from the stained-glass spells, and would have the scabbard be constantly recharging, then switch to using heat as the recharge when it was more efficient. The third part was the only truly complex part of the magic, but the spell had been taken from Osheen’s family’s sorcery. When the divination spell detected flames or powerful sources of heat, it would activate, funneling the heat into the scabbard, where it would then be converted into Aura.

Within the three layers of the spell, we’d layered a sympathetic link – this wasn’t recording much information or precise knowledge, so the growth spell wasn’t going to be very helpful. But by the sympathetic link should help us increase the already powerful synergy between the spells.

It wasn’t quite immunity to flame – enough raw heat and flame would overwhelm what Osheen’s aura sample could convert at once – but it was the next best thing.

I went over the runes with as critical of an eye as I was able to, and though there were a few things that I had to make him erase and repaint, he’d done an admirable job.

“So, it’s good then?” He asked, once I’d gone over it for a fourth time.

“I think so,” I said. “I’m not entirely sure how your Rune Bond is going to interface with this, which is my only concern. It should, in theory, make the spell stronger. It’s a spell you can cast, after all – it isn’t like Sarai’s trying to cast the spell. But admittedly, I’m still a bit worried.”

“Me too,” Osheen said, placing the leather scabbard into the center of the ritual circle. “Guide me through the words?”

“I will,” I said. “Just repeat after me. Skuh-tum ab ig-nay…”

I slowly made my way through the chant phonetically. It was unusual to chant without activating my Aura and threading it through the runes, and the slow pace that I had to enunciate the words at was even stranger.

Osheen didn’t seem to be that disturbed by the process, and once again I was boggled by the sheer amount of power that he was able to command.

Throughout the spell, he held forty-nine orbs of fire constant, wove his Aura through each and every rune, and still flowed excess power out of him and into speeding the charging time of the spell.

As the spell began to gather power from the ambient Aura, I was glad we had elected to use my lab, rather than the old rooms that I’d used last year. The air shook with power, and heat rolled out of the runes as if they were channeling fire out of the Elemental Fields themselves.

Rather than slow Osheen, however, this only seemed to speed his fueling of the spell.

It took four hours of painstaking chanting, and towards the end, Osheen’s first arch-star was simply dumping its stored aura into the spell like a fire brigade desperate to stop a housefire.

And then there was one last burst of heat and light that exploded through the room. My retinas burned, and smoke filled the air, causing me to cough and splutter.

For a terrifying moment, I thought that the spell had collapsed. Smoke, light, and fire were all common side effects of a spell collapse.

And indeed, there had been a spell collapse: Forty-nine of them, in fact.

But it wasn’t from the scabbard.

Upon the completion of the scabbard’s magic, all of the fires that Osheen had been powering had been drained dry, and their spells had collapsed. His own Aura had drained to a near dangerous level, but he’d held onto just enough to shakily rise to his feet.

“Did it work?” Osheen asked.

I flicked open my third eye. Immediately, the bright red jagged runes of Osheen’s spellwork leapt out at me, surrounding the scabbard.

“Let’s see,” I said. I raised my hand and flexed my Aura into a glyph that I typically used to light candles, and a few sparks of flame burst from my palm.

They flew right at the scabbard and dissolved instantly, refueling some of the storage of power in the scabbard, and I nodded.

“It works,” I said.

“Good,” Osheen said.

And then he passed out.

I dragged him and the scabbard back to our rooms, then put him in the bath to warm him up and regenerate his Aura.

It took him a little bit, but he finally came to, and once he’d restored enough of his Aura to refill a decent chunk of his Aura storage arch-star, we took a break to eat lunch, then headed up to where the king’s ritual chamber had been.

I checked over the spell one more time, just to make sure that I wasn’t missing anything, and then began my own chant.

This chant was much longer than the one that Osheen had used, and was almost entirely in the language of Old Bradlewyr, though there were some screams that I was adding in for the Consumer’s magic.

I still wasn’t sure that the screaming helped, but it was as close to their speech as I was able to manage, and it wouldn’t hurt. Silence on the other hand wouldn’t be able to help, and it could hurt if the spell did need some screeching.

Therefore, I left it in, even if I did feel a little bit ridiculous doing it.

Eventually I decided that there wasn’t anything else I could do today. Tomorrow, Lyn and Sarai’s uncle would come over, and with Osheen, them, and my skills, I should be able to actually start on the spell.

Since there wasn’t anything else to do for now, though, I retired to my room with Osheen early. We had a small dinner of mushrooms and potatoes, with a steak on the side. I only nibbled a bit on the steak, but the mushrooms had a strong rosemary flavor that I really enjoyed.

“Do you think this will be enough to impress Medb?” Osheen asked. “I mean, my gift. Yours will.”

I shrugged.

“Honestly, I’m not sure mine will be. She’s way stronger than the Silver Queen. The Silver Queen only got an invitation to this party after a year of holding the ley lines. I’m not even sure how these would be as gifts for the Silver Queen, let alone someone so beyond her scope. I think these would, but like I said, I’m not sure. I don’t even know if they’d be accepted as a standard gift – do druids bring enchanted items as gifts?”

“They do sometimes,” Osheen said. “I know that much, at least. I’m not a druid, but my father made me study a fair bit about different types of magic. Human magic is exceptionally flexible, moreso than just about any type of magic in the world, and it’s exceptionally good about working with other types of magic, so it’s not uncommon to trade human magic for inhuman. Portals in particular – that was what Kelsie was bargaining with.”

“Interesting,” I said, filing that away for later. Maybe the gifts were a bit better than I’d initially thought. “Then… I’m confident these would be good gifts for the Silver Queen, but I’m not sure about the Medb. She’s operating on an entirely different scale.”

“True,” Osheen said. “But I suppose there’s not much that we can do about it now, is there?”

“Not really,” I said with a sigh. “Do you mind if I grab one of your potatoes?”

“Be my guest,” he said. I leaned up and kissed him on the cheek.

“Thank you for putting up with me this semester. I know I’ve done basically nothing but lock myself away to enchant stuff. But it should be over, as soon as the party’s over.”

“I appreciate that,” Osheen said. “I won’t say it hasn’t been hard. I understand why you needed to, of course, but… I miss you.”

“I miss you too,” I said.

We relaxed the rest of the night, and the following morning it was time to throw myself into enchanting.

Again. 

I was getting sick of this.