WWDtS Chapter 140 (Patreon)

Bit of a slow start to NaNoWriMo this year, but I'm still hopeful!

The sky was awash with a riot of colors. Avalon’s usually starless night sky glowed brighter than it did at midday, lit by floating lights, blazing comets, and the fiery shapes of Ortus and Occasus, the mated phoenixes that had roosted in one of Avalon’s many towers for almost as long as the Academy had existed. The two birds danced at the center of the chaos, swooping in and around with impossible grace, golden fire billowing off their wings and sparks raining down like tiny stars in their wakes. 

The phoenixes were not alone in the sky. They were joined by a trio of dragons, a golden-coated pegasus, countless birds, and dozens of flying mages. One of the dragons––Professor Slaughterfang if I wasn’t mistaken––was so huge that he had to be using some sort of spatial magic to not utterly fill the sky. When he’d first transformed, he’d been bigger than the stadium the dueling challenge had taken place in, and his first wingbeat had unleashed a windstorm powerful enough to send several nearby mages flying. 

As chaotic as the air above Avalon was, the land beneath the birds was much, much worse. There were only so many mages willing to fly in close proximity to dragons no matter what the Myrddin had said, and the enormous swarms of black birds with golden beaks and talons Lady Ambrosius had released from beneath the voluminous skirts of her gown were incredibly nimble fliers that never got too close to any of the people with whom they shared the sky. Much nimbler than several thousand drunk mages, that was for certain.

The stretch of grounds between the Academy’s main building and the stadium was packed. A vast field had been transformed into a dance floor of glowing crystal, tables piled high with food were scattered all across the grass, and small seating areas were arrayed around them or tucked away in the surrounding gardens. 

Just about every student from every year was present, joined by what had to be several hundred Alumni who had flooded into Avalon throughout the day. Most had changed into formal clothing from countless cultures and nations, while some remained in what they’d worn for the dueling challenge earlier in the day. 

As much as most of the former students who’d arrived had stopped to watch the duels, it wasn’t really what they were here for. That was the solstice festival, though it was more commonly known as Founding Day––the anniversary of the first Myrddin’s creation of the dimension that would later become home to Avalon Academy. There was a similar, though smaller, festival after the summer dueling challenge––also set on the solstice––that theoretically commemorated the first semester of the Academy itself, but the dates didn’t actually line up and it was considered a much less important occasion. 

The mood was almost oppressively festive. Wine, beer, and more spirits than I could name flowed like water, mountains of alchemically-produced and naturally harvested narcotic vanished from serving bowls and platters, and the air was so heavy with mana that it made my skin tingle and hammered against my mana sense like the thunder of countless drums. It thrumbed and sang, vast currents rising up to fill the sky and sinking into the earth, carrying with them the jubilation of the crowd. There were enough archmages and great mages present to conquer half the known world, and the vast majority of them had their mana flared to resist the pressure of every other mage’s mana. 

In past years, I’d spent the solstice festival lurking in the quietest corner of the Academy grounds I could find or hiding in my room, but Miranda’s nagging and my performance earlier in the day had made that impossible. I’d tried to find a quiet corner, but that had only lasted as long as it took Brenda––one of the least subtle, reserved people in Avalon––to track me down. From there, my corner very quickly became neither quiet nor private. 

I was seated at a small table at the edge of one of the gardens that gave me a clear view of the grounds while making it difficult to approach me from the back. Even with the ban on violence, some instincts were hard to shake and I hated having so many dangerous people where I couldn’t see them. 

Originally, the table had had three seats around it. I’d taken and levitated the other two over to another nearby table before I’d sat down. My efforts had been utterly in vain. There were now six chairs clustered around the table, and random people kept coming by to talk to me or the people who’d come to join me. 

Some of those were to be expected, as much as I would have preferred otherwise. Brenda had of course tracked me down less than ten minutes after I’d sat down. Today she was wearing a truly abominable purple and orange gown that was probably designed to mimic the sky at twilight and must have cost an actual fortune, but mostly just looked garish and ugly.  

She’d skipped almost the entire dueling challenge, including, surprisingly, my ‘fight’ with Delphin. By the time she did show up, all the clusters of seats around where I was sitting were thankfully taken, so I hadn’t had to deal with her until after the end of the event and opening of the solstice festival. Unfortunately, she seemed keen on making up for lost time. She’d quickly gone from just clinking to my arm like a limpet to reclining with her head in my lap and my left hand clutched tightly between both of hers. 

Others were much less expected. Alan and Ulan had come by after about an hour, accompanied by an incredibly intoxicated fourth-year girl I didn’t recognize who seemed content to stretch across the brothers’ laps with her eyes half-lidded as she gazed up at the sky. Camille joined us a few minutes later, carrying a half-empty crystal carafe of some pale-pink alcoholic drink that smelled vaguely astringent but she seemed to be enjoying. 

Lastly, we’d been joined by Cain Marrowood, the fifth year who’d accompanied Clarient to meet with me earlier in the day. He’d wandered past, stopped to congratulate me, then came back some time later and wordlessly pulled up a chair from one of the nearby tables. 

Miranda––the only person I’d usually talked to at these events––was nowhere to be seen. She’d come by towards the start of the night, then vanished into the crowd to mingle. She was at home at events like this, much more so than I was. She knew better than to hunt on a night like tonight, but she was a social predator and the connections that could be made at a gathering like this one could be worth a lot more than a few meals. I was glad I had her to do so for me so that I didn’t have to. 

I’d just finished talking to another of my classmates who’d come to congratulate me––I felt like I must have shared a class with him at some point but his name escaped me––when a sphere of off-blue fire fell from the sky directly towards where we were sitting. Despite the day’s promise of safety, I started to react to the perceived threat, only for the fire to stop a few feet in front of the table and wink out. 

Liam dropped the last few feet to the ground, landing soundlessly on the grass, then straightened his doublet and grinned at me. Like most of the people I’d seen tonight, he’d clearly been drinking. There was a goblet held loosely in his left hand, the enchantments along its rim the only thing stopping the violet liquid within from spilling out.

“Orion!” he exclaimed cheerily, his words slightly slurred. “Just the man I was hoping to find! Fantastic work out there, fantastic work! I must say, I wasn’t fully convinced when I read your paper, but that was a damn good showing. Fast, efficient, and you reabsorbed just about all the mana you spent on the shield! Doubt I’ll have too much time to fiddle with it this year, but maybe I’ll touch back on the concept after I graduate.”

I smiled back at him, doing my best not to show how my heart was racing from his sudden arrival. Myrddin’s peace or not, I didn’t like seeing giant balls of fire flying directly towards me. “Thank you, Liam. I have some additional notes on the topic I’d potentially be willing to share.” I didn’t have to add ‘for a price’. That was implied.

Liam’s eyes cleared for a moment. “Something to discuss another time.” He paused and leaned forward, squinting at me. “I think that you my friend,” he told me solemnly, “are far too sober. It's Founding Day, and you’ve been holed up here as long as I’ve seen you!” His eyes flicked down to Brenda, who was mostly ignoring everything going on around us. She’d stepped away several times and returned empty handed, but I could tell she’d been indulging in something. “At least you’re not letting the night go completely to waste! If you’re looking for some privacy,” he wiggled his eyebrows, “the east garden is mostly deserted.”

I glanced down at Brenda, but she didn’t seem to have heard anything, lost in her own world. She was rocking my hand back back and forth above her chest and humming a discordant melody quietly enough that I could only feel it through the vibrations of her head. “Perhaps some other night,” I told Liam diplomatically. 

He tilted his head to the side, blinked several times, then nodded severely. “So it's like that. He extended his free hand behind him and a spell matrix flared into existence and vanished so quickly I barely had time to make out what he’d done. A few seconds later, a pair of small glasses filled with a transparent spirit shot into his waiting hand, weaving nimbly through the crowd of people between us and the nearest serving table. 

He tossed one of them to me, the glass tumbling end over end but not spilling a drop. I snatched it out of the air before it could land on Brenda’s face and eyed it suspiciously. I ran my thumb across the glass, feeling the minute runes worked into the glass. The craftsmanship was exquisite, the glass as clear as crystal and the ridges formed by the runes barely perceptible. It was definitely mage work; no mundane craftsman could hope to produce something so precise. 

I probed the edges of the enchantments imbued into the glass with my mana, feeling out the shape of the magic. It wasn’t a particularly precise method of examination, but it didn’t require any active spellcasting or aids like the glasses I’d made for analyzing rituals. 

The first was easy––a simple enchantment I’d come across a number of times in the past designed to keep the contents of the glass cold. The other was much more complicated in implementation, but it was also something I’d seen before. The runes on the rim were there to stop the contents from sloshing out. In theory a simple goal, but it became much more complicated when you also wanted to be able to drink from the glass, pour it out, refill it, and so forth. 

I thoughtfully traced the rim with my fingernail. What a casual, convenient use of enchanting. That was one of those things about Avalon I still wasn’t quite used to. The cutthroat culture was one thing. I’d traveled a lot more than most people my age, and seen a lot of places and people. Deep down, things were like that everywhere. It was simply the nature of life to do anything and everything to get ahead as long as you could get away with it. Avalon just didn’t bother hiding it behind pretty words and justifications. 

The casual use of magic was quite another. Mages were not necessarily rare outside the Academy, but the extent to which magic permeated everyday life was simply on an entirely different level. Before I’d come to Avalon, it would have never even occurred to me to enchant everyday items like clothing and dishes. Perhaps the nobility everywhere lived like this––I wouldn’t know––but most people certainly didn’t. 

Liam misinterpreted my silence. “It's Aruvian Nectar. Damn good stuff. I think you’ll like it.” The name was unfamiliar, but that wasn’t a surprise. The world was a big place and I’d never bothered to learn much about the myriad types of alcohol people choose to indulge in. There were so many more productive things to learn about and I’d never understood the appeal of intentionally consuming something that weakened your mind and ruined your control. 

I extended the glass back towards him. “I don’t drink.” Especially not something that smelled quite so strongly of alcohol. A small quantity of wine or beer was fine, particularly when I didn’t trust the available water, but this was almost certainly some kind of magically refined spirit, the sort that could get even mages with robust circulations and elves drunk. 

Before Liam could say anything, the glass was snatched out of my hand. I whirled around just in time to see a woman who I belatedly realized was Professor Williams down the glass in a single gulp, then toss it carelessly onto the table where it bounced several times before coming to a stop. She wiped her lips with the back of her hand, then grinned at me. “Ah, that hits the spot. Thank you, Orion, Mr. Marc Pierr.”

I stared at her for a moment longer than was necessarily polite. She looked…different. Enough so that her magic had clued me in to her identity before her appearance had. I’d seen Professor Williams a few times outside of class, but she’d almost always been wearing the same austere robes that most Professors taught in. 

Today, she was dressed much more casually, or perhaps festively was a better word for it. Her long hair tumbled around her shoulders instead of the ponytail or bun she usually wore it in and her pale blue wrap-like top left one of her shoulders and a triangle of her belly exposed. Long chains of glass beads were wrapped around her wrists and extended up her bare arms, tinkling softly against one another as she moved, and she wore a matching necklace. Instead of the pants most mages wore under robes, she wore a long, narrow skirt of the same fabric as her top that hugged her legs from hips to ankles and then flared out around her feet. 

I wasn’t the only one caught off guard. Liam didn’t outwardly react, but I could tell he was scrambling internally. Eventually he raised his own glass and drained it just as quickly as she had. “Of course. I’m glad to be of service, Professor.” He set his glass down, then turned to me. “To each their own.” His eyes flicked towards Professor Williams. “I’ll leave you to your evening. Happy Founding Day, Orion, Professor,” he briefly regarded the other people sitting around the table, “everyone.” Then he turned around and walked away, quickly vanishing into the throng. 

Professor Williams cocked her hip, slowly eyeing the other people sitting with me. Her eyes lingered on Camille, then continued onward until she reached me and Brenda. “Good evening, students. I hope everyone is enjoying the festival?” She looked between Brenda and the girl in Alan and Ulan’s laps. “Perhaps even a little bit too much, in some cases.”

“Good evening, Professor Williams,” I greeted, quickly followed by a chorus of other greetings from those sober enough to do so. “It's a beautiful evening.”

She laughed. Even without the magic usually present in her voice, she had a very musical laugh. “Ah, that it is. But please, Founding Day is no time for titles. Just call me Gayle.”

It felt wrong to do so, but doing what terrifyingly powerful archmages told you to do tended to be a good survival skill. “Of course. It’s a beautiful evening, Gayle.”

She laughed again, then gestured behind her. There was a flicker of mana, my mana sense giving me just the barest echo of symbols that had appeared and vanished so quickly my eyes didn’t have time to catch them. The earth beneath her rose, reshaping itself into a sort of lounging sofa covered in soft grass. She collapsed onto it with a loud sigh of relief, kicking her feet up on a footrest-shaped root. “Ah, that’s better.” She squinted at Camille, who was in the middle of taking a drink. “Ey, girly, share a cup?” A flick of her fingers righted the glass she’d tossed aside and sent it shooting to float beside Camille.

Camille looked back at her with big eyes, then hurried to obey, filling the small glass from her slowly emptying carafe. The moment the glass was full, it shot back towards Gayle who didn’t bother catching it, just taking a sip directly from the floating vessel. She wrinkled her nose and gestured again, setting the glass down on the grass beside her. 

“So Orion, have you given any thought to what classes you’ll be taking this semester?” she asked, wiggling her eyebrows.

I gave her a flat stare. Even before subsuming the outsider’s abilities, I’d have understood a hint that blatant. I had, as a matter of fact, spent a not insignificant amount of time planning my schedule for the spring. I’d also already submitted the forms for the class Professor Williams had suggested I take earlier in the week, something she absolutely knew.

A moment later, I realized that I was being rather rude to an extremely dangerous archmage who, as far as I could tell, actually liked me. I had no idea what she wanted from me right now, but it was probably better to play along. “Some,” I admitted. “There are some very interesting new electives I’ve been considering.”

“How exciting!” She clapped her hands together and sighed dramatically. “Ah, to be young again. These days it costs an arm and a leg if I want to get anything interesting out of my colleagues.”

I could imagine. Avalon had a robust framework for its Alumni to share knowledge and information, but it didn’t make such exchanges cheap by any means. If you wanted something valuable, you better have something equally valuable to contribute. “That sounds frustrating.”

“It is!” she agreed emphatically. “And they’re all so stingy! Well, unless you happen to be one of their former apprentices, but even then some people get all cagey when you start talking about eighth- and ninth-circle magics. Not me of course, I’m always happy to keep working with my protégées after they graduate, but some people…” she shook her head. “I appreciate what he’s done for me and I love Ivy to death, but that man just can’t talk straight to save his life.”

“Ivy?” I asked, cautiously curious. I didn’t think there was a professor by that name at Avalon, but there could have been, and that sounded suspiciously like an elf name. 

“Oh, my old mentor from back in the day. He doesn’t teach anymore. Great guy.” 

She didn’t seem keen to volunteer any additional information so I didn’t ask. I’d need to ask around, or maybe Miranda would know something I didn’t. Regardless, I was getting increasingly confident I knew what Professor Williams––Gayle––was getting it. “I’ll make sure to keep that in mind when I’m looking into mentors next year.”

She reached out, brushed Brenda’s hair out of the way, and patted me on the knee. “You do that, Orion.”

She abruptly changed the subject. “So, I see your new circulations have mostly settled. How do they feel? Any issues?”

“I think everything seems to have worked properly. I’m still acclimating myself to using them, but I’m quite happy with the result.”

“Good, good! You should come by my office sometime next semester, once you’ve had time to get the hang of everything. I’d love to take a look.”

“Of course, Gayle.”

She looked past me towards Camille and the twins, who’d also been in that same rituals class with me. “And you lot? Any trouble?”

“No, prof–Gayle,” Camille said quickly.

“Everything seems good so far,” Ulan agreed.

“Good, good. I’d hate to think I graded any of you incorrectly.” With that out of the way, she went back to ignoring that I wasn’t alone at the table. “So Orion, that was a clever bit of spellwork earlier. Tell me about it…”