The Abjurer: Chapter 28-29 (Patreon)

Osheen watched as, this time, instead of being sucked into a void, he was placed gently onto a garden path. The path was – of course – made of ice, with delicate rosebushes also sculpted from it. Scattered throughout the garden were statues of people encased in ice.

For a moment, he thought they were just lifelike statues, but as he looked closer, he felt a pit of dread forming in his stomach.

They were people, there was no mistaking that. A human, frozen mid scream, forever preserved in ice. An elf, begging on her knees. An aster, a minotaur, favura, and even some races that he couldn’t recognize. 

There was one common theme, though. 

Abject terror. 

Every one of them had been frozen in fear. 

Osheen dared not look too long, and instead hastened down the garden path. 

There was a pagoda at the end of the path, and seated on the bench inside was Medb. 

She looked different today, far younger, like an eight year old child, with ice-blue eyes and long, black hair. She looked mostly human this time too, except for the tips of her teeth, which reminded him of an Aster.

If Evan was here, he could probably have explained it. There was probably some significance there.

He didn’t know what it was, though. The Roarks kept deals with elementals, not fae. 

“Hi!” Medb, the child, said brightly. Her voice was like the winter sun, bright, reflecting against all the ice, a burning light without any heat that saw into his very core. 

If her power was lesser in this form, it made it all the more terrifying, because he could feel the loosening of rules that came with the diminished power. 

The small, animal part of Osheen’s brain knew, simply knew, that if she didn’t like his gift, he would suffer. Suffer until her amusement had extracted the price that he’d been lacking.

Osheen bowed at the waist. He wasn’t a stranger to fear. To bowing and scraping before someone who would make him suffer. 

After all, that was how he’d grown up. And if some small, dark part of his mind took joy at the thought of that tormenter being silenced? That just meant the Winter Court would like him more. 

He held the scabbard out to the child and spoke. 

“Honored Queen, I would like to present a tool for use in the fight against the Summer Court.” 

He had nearly said shield against them, but thought better of it. The last thing he wanted was for her to accuse him of thinking she was so weak she needed his protection. 

She snatched up the scabbard and held it aloft, studying it. 

Osheen waited for her judgment with baited breath, and when she wrinkled her tiny nose, his stomach dropped.

“I can block fire better than this,” she said. “The elemental magic is a clever trick, but it’s not powerful enough.”

Osheen’s mind spun at a million miles a minute. 

“I would not dare to suggest that it be carried by you personally,” he said. “With my meager strength, there is nothing I could build that would be worthy of even a fraction of a fraction of you.” 

The tiny girl laughed at that and nodded.

“You are pretty weak she said, leaning forwards and flicking his forehead. 

Pain exploded across him as his vision went red. His head pounded and he thought he might pass out. 

When his vision finally returned, he could only see the mini-Medb laughing at his pain. 

“Wow! That was great… But if you know that you’re not able to do anything worthy of me, what’s the point of this?” 

She picked up the scabbard from the bench and waved it around. 

“You are winter,” Osheen said, biting back a groan of pain as the words caused his head to pound again. “And winter is you. Nothing I can give you can be worthy. But you have many lords, ladies, maestros, and lesser queens. This tool may be worthy of them, and in their service, serve you.” 

The girl considered for a moment before nodding.

“Okay, I guess that makes sense!”

She smiled, and Osheen’s heart clutched with primal fear that that smile told the entire world that it was going to die. 

Death at the whims of a child. 

Then the smile melted and the fear was gone. The little girl was tapping her fingers against her chin, thinking. 

“Now what do I give you?”

Osheen started at that. Evan had told them that gifts were needed, expected even, but he hadn’t expected anything in return. This was Medb’s party, after all. Why would he get anything? 

The girl noticed his flinch and laughed.

“Don’t be stupid, Osheen! It might be my birthday and my party, but that only means the scales are different. Not that they’re gone. Mortals are always so weird about that…” 

She clapped her hands in delight.

“Oh! I know, I know what I can give you. You have that nasty poison in your aura, so let’s start by getting rid of that.” 

It was gone.

Osheen was talented with aura manipulation, and was sensitive to the changes in his aura. 

He wasn’t a witch, who only knew how to light a rune, or a druid that carried a million conflicting powers. 

He was a sorcerer. Control over his aura was his bread and butter, and he was one of the best ones his age he knew. Even prodigies like Lyn were only marginally better. 

And he had felt nothing when the poison was removed. One second it was there, the next, it was gone. 

“That left some holes where it poked in,” the girl said. “They’ll close up in time, but why waste the opportunity?” 

Winter ice and cold surged through his aura then, filling the spots the poison had once been. But instead of harming him, slowing him, it energized him. 

Ice and Fire. Cold and Heat. 

Hadn’t he just been planning ways to make use of them to draw on his recharge? 

Hadn’t Evan made him a necklace that could draw on heat from elsewhere to amplify his fire? 

This new boon was woven through his aura. It didn’t replace those ideas, just amplified them. Made them more effective. Brought him into an uneven duality. 

Fire and heat, yes. Not doused by cold, but amplified by creating cold. 

Again, it happened in an instant, with a featherlight touch that he couldn’t even sense. 

The girl was staring at him expectantly, and Osheen quickly bowed again.

“Your skill and power are unmatched,” he said. “Never have I seen such a flawless boon.”

“I am pretty great,” the girl said, a smirk stretching across her face. “But no, that wasn’t what I wanted. Show me!” 

Show her?

Oh! 

Show her his new firepower, amplified by the boon.

Osheen drew back his hand, tapped into his amulet, and thrust his hand into the sky.

At the same moment, he envisioned the Immolation spell in its entirety. All twelve circles, thirty six runes, and one hundred and eight lines of it.

While he moved and envisioned, a third part of him used his well trained will to shape his Aura into the pattern his mind held. 

Finally, the last part of him tapped Evan’s necklace.

In less than a second, the massive, cart sized fireball exploded from his hand and shot upwards into the sky. 

As it did, it drew on heat from all around it, amplifying the fireball’s heat. 

The fire burned white, with thin streaks of blue swirling throughout. It rose like a stone fired from a catapult, and Osheen began layering another spell. 

As soon as the immolation spell was nearing the range of his control, he empowered the second spell. 

His white hot flames broke apart into a dozen smaller fireballs, each of which burned with slightly bluer, but still mostly white, fire. 

He thrust his palm down and the fireballs fell to earth like a meteor.

He began preparing a third spell.

When the fireballs were a foot or so above the ground, they froze.

He clapped, and the fireballs all shot towards the centerpoint of there circle, where they exploded into tongues of white fire before vanishing. 

When he finished, he glanced at the child queen. She was smiling and clapped.

“More!”

Osheen nodded. When he had first been learning his fire magic with his father, he’d been made to learn a dance. Part of the dance involved swirling multiple candle sized fires around you, without letting them burn you. 

He’d messed up a lot, of course, but all the burns and disapprovement of his father had eventually led him to master the dance. 

He conjured ten fireballs, each one easily the size of a melon, and set them swirling about him as he fell into the first step. 

If he was going to dance for Medb’s amusement, then he would at least make it a good showing.

One step, then another. Each one with a globe of fire missing him by mere hairs, the icy-hot power singing his skin unpleasantly. 

The full dance took him ten minutes to complete, and when he finished, he glanced at Medb.

“More!” she said as she clapped.

So, he kept going. Cyclical fireballs that preserved aura. Flame lances with three layers to impart heat through force armor. Enshrouded fire spheres designed to pierce windshields. Fires that glowed different colors. Pillars of raw fire that could burn a man down to the bone. Fire that burned without heat. Candles that let out light like a bonfire. Flame orbs that were as small as marbles, or as large as his immolation spell.

Midway through, he began to have to draw power out of his arch-star, and was grateful that Bridgette had undergone an evolution recently. If she hadn’t, he would have needed to tap into his arch-star even sooner.

He went through all of his tricks, but the child tyrant always answered with only one word: “More!”

As he ran out of spells he knew worked, he had to start delving into the more experimental ones that he and Evan had worked on that very week, as well as some of the ones he’d been working on in his spare time, like his attempt at recreating the odd, invisible gasflame that his old imbued wand had allowed him to use. 

These seemed to be of more interest to Medb, who cheered when they succeeded, and laughed when they resulted in spell failure explosions that forced him to use his force armor to avoid injury. 

By the time he finished, his power was guttering out, his entire mental library of spells wrung dry. 

“More!” Medb demanded, and Osheen drew out the last flickers of aura. 

And began doing aura shaping  tricks. 

Folding and layering techniques to compress his aura. Spinning it like a cyclone to train his speed, then stopping it and abruptly spinning it the oppisite way to increase mental flexibility. Twisting the aura into tight knots and bunches. Spinning it thin, like thread, then shaping it into complex weaves to improve control. Thinning the aura out then bunching it together to improve rapid shifts. Seperating the aura from his body as much as he could and trying to cram it into an orb – an excercise he’d seen his lousy father doing often enough, even though he didn’t know what benefit it had.

He had only the barest sliver of power left in him, but aura exercises didn’t expend much. 

His tormentor kept clapping, kept demanding more and more, until, after what felt like hours of training with fire and aura, she sighed.

“Okay, I’m bored. You can go now. Bye!”

A brilliant white light swallowed him, and then he was tumbling out. Someone caught him, and Osheen looked up, blearry, and barely able to think. 

“Are you okay?” Evan asked. Osheen let himself relax. Evan would make sure he was okay. 

He was safe now.

~~~

I shifted uncomfortably as Osheen entered the icy black doors and into Medb’s domain. I started tracking the seconds in my mind, waiting for him to emerge.

Fourteen seconds later, the doors swung open. Osheen stumbled out, pale as a ghost, slick with sweat, and barely able to stand.

I caught him and looked down at his half slumped form, panic rising in my throat.

“Are you okay?!” I asked, desperately hoping that he was conscious.

Osheen’s eyes flickered a few times, then his head lulled to one side. I grit my teeth and did something stupid.

I’d been warned against opening my third eye in Medb’s banquet hall. I’d been okay in my rooms, or in the duel, but not here.

I opened my third eye anyways. I needed to check on Osheen.

I wasn’t completely stupid. I leaned in as close as I could, to the point my head should be enveloped in Osheen’s powerful aura, before I flicked it on.

For a moment, I saw it. The tiny pinprick of an all but expended aura, and a glowing blue sigil of winter fae magic.

The moment I saw it, I started shutting my third eye, but even then, I was still too slow. For a fraction of a second, I saw Medb’s hall.

An explosion of power, light, shadow, death, wind, sea, sky, ice, and a thousand more forces exploded across my mind. Power I could not fathom, matched only by limits I could only dream of.

On such a scale, free will was but an illusion. Medb was no more free to choose her own path than a glacier was free to burn or a mountain was free to fly.

Trapped.

For all her power, for all she stood among only eight faerie peers, for all she stood powerful among Demonic Thrones and Archangels, among Dragons and Dream Judges, among Architects…

Locked away.

All things in their place.

When I came to, I was crying, and the strange man in ragged brown travel garb was holding me upright, stopping me from choking on my own spit.

Already, the information and insights that the tiny glimpse had offered were fading, so I glanced about.

The line had moved on, and Osheen was nowhere to be found.

Panic shot through me, and my eyes fluttered.

“Where’s Osheen?!” I asked desperately.

“Your husband’s fine,” the strange man said. “I sent him to your room.”

Then his face twisted into a frown.

“I thought I told you that was stupid and dangerous, kid.”

The man didn’t look much older than me. There was no way he was over twenty-five, let alone old enough to call me kid.

But I couldn’t bring up the annoyance to argue with him. I was just… Tired.

“Listen,” the stranger said. “I’ve got to visit the Dreamscape soon, so I can’t stay long. But you need to get in line. If you don’t present a gift, you don’t want to know what will happen.”

I nodded and shakily rose to my feet, him helping me up.

“Good,” he said. “And good luck.”

Then he turned, waving his hand. There was the faintest tug of aura, and a ragged hole in space tore itself open. He stepped through and was gone.

In my bones, I somehow knew that was the last time I would ever see that strange man.

I shook myself and rejoined the line, which had shortened considerably. Fewer people were joining too, so before too long, I was at the front of the line once more.

When I passed through the ice black doors, I didn’t emerge into a void. Instead, I found myself pattering along worn wooden flooring. Old, weathered stone walls stood firmly on either side of me, and led into a living room.

I slowly paced in, and saw an elderly woman sitting in a wooden rocking chair, rocking back and forth and knitting.

She looked ancient, with wrinkled dark skin, and hair that had gone white, only tiny threads of brown still visible.

More terrifying, at least to me, was the fact her fingers – and when she smiled at me, her teeth – were made of iron.

“Evander Tailor,” she said, her voice the rasp of cold metal right before it plunged into your heart. “Please, sit, and present your gift.”

I froze for a second, then bowed, and sat in the rocking chair oppisite hers.

It was warm, uncomfortably so. Not warm like someone had been sitting there, but warm like the endless march of days, of summertime sunshine.

I passed the old woman the blade, and she took it and examined it for a second, then nodded.

“This will serve as an appropriate recompense to Lord Tidewater.”

She looked up at me and smiled.

“As repayment, allow me to tell you a story.”

I wasn’t sure how a story would be payment for a blade, but I knew better than to protest against Medb, the Crone.

“Of course,” I said.

“When your human race first crawled itself out of the trees, the world was old. I was but a Lady then. Magic was wild.”

As she spoke, her magic began to impose itself onto me. A slow but inexorable creep, like death itself.

“Not stronger,” the crone clarified. “No. Magic grows each year. Each pass of a mage into What Comes Next strengthens us. But it was freer. More wild. An untamed wilderness. The human race could not survive.”

Shadows danced in front of the fireplace. A group of shadowy hunters with spears, being violently torn apart by a giant bear, easily the size of a house.

“You should have been torn apart by the Meeting Grounds – what you call Cré. And you would have been, like those before you. If not for the first of what you call druids.”

The shadows shifted, showing a young woman holding up her hand. Beside her, a tiny scarab beetle touched it, and then power flowed out from both, intermixing.

“Mortal magic was born that day,” Medb said. “A girl, from a small group of people, was outcast away into the sands and met with a weak beetle. Two outcasts, brought together. They sparked a change. Other mortals began to seek out the monsters in the night. Slowly, grinding cycle after cycle, they brought the world to heel.”

The shadows began to move rapidly then. Every blink was a century, but it still took many years.

“It was not long before those, desprate, pressed to the brink, developed power under pressure. The first arch-stars. As those appeared, mortals began to use their intent and words. Group circles, long chants into the night, all to defend themselves. Ritual magic was born, and from there, champions of a single rune.”

The pressure that Medb had laid on me was crushing now, and I struggled to breathe, but she didn’t stop her story.

“The world changed. The Meeting Place truly became the Mortal World. Arch-stars became specialized for the tasks of mages, not a desperate plea for survival.”

Medb looked at me then, and smiled. It was terrifying.

“You need a tool of survival, Evander. Not a tool of mages. If you want to bring a new dawn to your nation… Survive.”

The pressure on me exploded, and the last of my breath left my lungs.

Medb was still talking, but I couldn’t hear her. Everything was pounding, ripping, tearing.

I tried to let out a scream, but I had no breath to do so.

“Survive,” Medb said again, and this time her voice was loud enough to hear. It resonated in my ears, pounding against my skull.

Survive.

Survive.

Survive.

But… How? How could I survive this. It was faerie death magic, yes, but it was maintained by a power infinitely greater than my own. Even if it was constrained to limits based on the sword I’d gifted, the sword was stronger than me.

I was just an enchanter. There was nothing I could do.

I forced my aura to light itself around me, even though I knew it would do nothing.

I tried to force it to shape into the impetus glyph, but I just couldn’t. The death magic put an end to it before I was even able to start.

My vision was beginning to blur. The edges were black, slowly creeping in.

I kept fighting anyways, trying to call for Oracle’s will to help me push back the faerie magic.

The connection between us snapped.

My muscles began to spasm, jerking around and I fell to the floor, thrashing wildly.

Then my vision was gone too, and darkness closed in.

I pushed my aura even harder. I had to survive, I had to fight. I had to survive, for so many reasons. I wanted to be with Osheen. Re-establish my link with Oracle.

I tried to tap into the debt I was owed by the vernal court. It would be nothing compared to Medb, but it might buy me a second of time and relief.

Medb cut off my access to that boon too.

I didn’t even know that was possible. They were wrapped around in my aura, they were a part of me, until they were spent.

Then, distinctly, I felt my heart stop.

I didn’t know how I knew it. Maybe Medb was using it to drive in the point, or maybe it was the thrashing of a brain without air, or maybe it was just the way that I was supposed to die.

I found myself in the creamy whiteness of the In Between again, with darkness surging up from beneath me, long tendrils trying to rip at me, to drag me into whatever would happen to my soul once I passed from this realm.

As if that wasn’t enough, Medb’s magic was here too, shooting along the void and empowering it.

I clutched my fist and let the tiny flickers of my aura explode around me.

It was harder here, like I was trying to push through water instead of air.

But I did it.

When the tendril of death, enhanced by Medb’s magic, touched my leg, I slammed my fist into it. Green power met black, and a heavy pressure came over my aura.

I ignored it, ripping the tendril off of my leg. Until my soul slipped into that void, I wasn’t truly dead. My body might have failed, but I wasn’t fully gone. I could be brought back, either with magic or mundane resuscitation.

Another tendril wrapped itself around my leg, and I brought my glowing fist down on it again.

And again.

Over and over, I drove back the tentacles of the void, and I felt something happening.

Above my head, my aura began to bunch itself up and twist into a ragged shape.

Not some elegant arch-star that had been honed over thousands of years since it had been discovered, with training methods that were safer, and ways to push yourself without dying.

No, pushing yourself to death was the training method for this arch-star. One of the oldest, one that had come from a time where humans could be ripped apart in the dark.

My aura spiked, and the shape finished forming.

My lifeline, the strange elan vital that powered aura sparks, that I had ripped into with my attack against the Vernal Queen I’d fought, connected to my aura.

Backwards.

My aura shrunk, ever so slightly, and my eyes snapped open. My vision was almost completely obscured, and my whole body burned with pain, blood dripping from my eyes, from my nose, from my ears.

My heart beat.

Then again.

I slammed my hands into the ground and rose to my feet. My gaze met with that of Medb, Queen of Winter, and I drew in a single ragged breath.

My cloak flared around me, and her power lessened. I stepped forwards, and the hag began to laugh, a heavy and powerful rolling laugh.

Medb’s power was limited by the very gift I’d given her, and I’d been wrong about one thing.

I wasn’t weaker than the sword.

I was the sword’s creator. I could channel far more power than that.

The power around me broke.