The Enchanter (Journals of Evander Tailor Book 1), page 30
The pain vanished. Everything vanished. I was floating in a sea of emptiness with Oracle on my shoulder both of us alone in a bright void.
I felt something cold grip my leg and looked down. A dark hand was holding onto me, stopping me from drifting farther upwards. I stared at it, and it began to drag me down. I started to try and kick it away, but Oracle sent me an urgent feeling of wrongness at that. I relaxed, even though it went against every instinct that I had and allowed the dark power to drag me into it.
Then everything was strange. I had faint memories of a bitter potion. I thought I remembered Osheen saying something, and the healer’s annoyed tones. I remember seeing brown light suffusing me, sinking into my body once again, but I couldn’t imagine why Tara would need another luck spell unless things had gone truly bad.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Arrival
I sat up with a jerk and a gasp, and my eyes flew open. My body felt like I had been beaten with hammers and bats, then left to starve for a month, but I forced myself to look around. I was in the medical branch. It looked like it was the same room that I had been in before, but on the dresser was a handful of different papers. Osheen sat in a chair next to me and had my hand in his, and Tara had pulled a chair to the corner of the room, where she was buried in a book.
“How are you feeling?” he asked, squeezing my hand gently.
“Dead,” I responded dryly. My voice was a croak.
“You almost were,” Tara said quietly. “Your spell had bound itself to your life. It burned away your internal fat. Once it had sucked out everything that it could from that, it began to eat at your muscles. When the spell was removed, it took a heavy toll on your body. You didn’t atrophy, but it knocked you out for three days, and it’ll take you more time to return to normal, even with as much healing magic as they can pump into you and my magic counterbalancing the luck potion. Luckily, your amulet has its own counterbalance, or I’d have had to get Travis involved…and I hate the man.”
“What happens with the luck?”
“You pay for it later. I was able to spread it out, so you’ll be paying for it with mild inconveniences for a few weeks, rather than an hour of murderous luck.”
She took in a deep breath and then shook her head. “It was stupid to try and build a spell outside of what you were able to do. If I hadn’t been in to notice my spells going haywire, you would have died, almost certainly. But I won’t lecture you too hard about that. I’ve done the same, many times over. What I will lecture you about is not having any of your friends there. That was stupid.”
“You should have had me there,” Osheen said.
My reasoning of not wanting to annoy him seemed pretty flimsy when I examined it through the context of potential death. “I’m sorry,” I said quietly. “You’re right.”
“Just…do better in the future,” Tara said. She rose, gave me a sad look, and then left the room. I looked up at Osheen.
“I didn’t want to annoy you since I’d already made you go out shopping with you.”
He leaned down and kissed my forehead. “I wouldn’t have minded. I promise. If I needed you to help me test a new spell, I would ask you.”
“You only asked me once, though,” I observed.
“I also haven’t learned that much to learn any new fire magic yet.”
To me, that proved the point that I needed power like the assassin’s cloak to keep up with him and the other nobles and Sorcerers.
I spent three more days in the hospital, choking down potions every few hours and having spells and rituals cast on me by Jeffery. Osheen visited every day, usually multiple times. Victoria popped in a few times, as did Sarai. Lyn showed up with Sarai once and gave me a curt nod before she left. Tara apparently decided that being in the hospital was no excuse for not learning as she showed up during the time that we would normally have had lessons to continue them as best she could under the physician’s instructions to allow me bedrest.
Whenever I was alone, I used the time to study the Practical Guide and my notes on it, which all had been delivered by Osheen while I was knocked out.
On the third day, one of Jeffery’s assistants ran a diagnostic spell and announced me fit to leave, much to my relief. Finals would begin in just over two weeks, and I had magic that I needed to build.
Fifteen days. That’s how long I had to perform as much magic as possible, to enchant like my life depended on it, and to prepare for whatever challenges that would be thrown my way. I took in a deep breath to fight down the panic. I’d expected to have three weeks and had planned to build a charge of the cloak each week. Since I wasn’t able to afford that luxury, I’d have to focus…and hard.
My main goal was the cloak. While I could likely make an enhanced attack spell foci like the flame orb with my new knowledge on working components, I wanted something more reliable than my shaky amount of Aura.
I pulled out my pencil and began to do some math. Fifteen days, minus six hours of sleep a day and two hours of lessons with Tara on weekdays, which I didn’t dare skip, was about two hundred and fifty hours.
I was glad that I’d been so deliberate to get three times the components that I’d needed for the assassin’s cloak. It would take me about six hours to set up either, which was about twelve hours of work. Each one would then charge for two hundred hours, and I could do that synchronously if I used Phillip’s old room and my living room to space them out. Each one would take five hours of chanting to layer on the spell, which left me with twenty-two hours gone, since Tara had mentioned I could use her room, so I was able to have a third few projects going on in the two-hundred-hour charge time.
I’d want an iron cloak spell, but I wasn’t sure how that would interact with the assassin’s cloak spell, so I left that off for now. Force armor, on the other hand, I could apply to bracelets, which would be easy enough to make with leather cord. I briefly wished I had put more time into finishing a combat belt. I’d have to make do with whatever I could, but I scolded myself for my foolish mistake.
I figured that loading up with three force armor spells would be appropriate. It would tax my time and would eat up all the charge time for the two charges of the spell I was layering on the cloak, and that’d leave me with just over a day of time left to work. George’s paralysis spell took seventeen hours, plus a bit of prep time per spell, so I could feasibly do three of them, which left me with six hours left in which to do something. That would be my buffer time, I decided. In case I got caught up in something outside of my control.
Those fifteen days seemed to blur by, with me constantly chanting, calling power into items, and doing my best to hold my friendships together whenever I had things charging. Sarai found it very amusing and was happy to help supervise whenever she was able to, as was Osheen. As Sorcerers, they didn’t need nearly as much preparation as other people would. Victoria was apparently doing similar preparations, making as many enchanted items as she could before the final exams began.
To my relief, I’d learned where I’d made the slip of the tongue on the first assassin’s cloak and was able to layer both charges of the veil into the cloak Aldvarri had given me. Between them, I’d be able to remain veiled for up to six minutes. That didn’t seem long, but fights usually didn’t last long either, so I wasn’t too worried.
I was pulled out of my enchanting frenzy once, and that was to watch the king arrive.
On the day of his arrival, I was awoken once again by Elaine’s voice coming through the ward over the door.
“…to top branch one thirteen by noon to prepare for the arrival of His Worshipful Majesty, King Thomas, and Secretary of Defense, Duchess Serena Chantal. I repeat, all students report to top branch one thirteen by noon to…”
I went about my business, but I started to get ready at tenth bell. I put on the same suit that I had worn on my first date with Osheen, messed with my hair for a bit, and then headed up to the branch. The hallway was packed with people, and I was pressing myself against the wall. There were even more people than there had been on the solstice. At least four hundred people were crammed into the hall, ranging from the eighty or so Novices, all the way up to the Journeymen student research assistants.
If I’d been a little bit calmer, then I would have used my third eye to scan the crowd and identify whoever was calling the creatures in from the Starless Night. But my brain was forcing me into full-blown panic mode. People passed by me, headed through a door at the end of the branch, and it wasn’t until I felt a hand on my shoulder that I was snapped out of my panic. Osheen was standing in front of me, looking concerned.
“Evan, are you okay?”
I nodded mutely, and he tried to pull me into a hug, but I was already feeling smothered. I shook my head, and he pulled away.
“Sorry, just…not now.”
We waited a little bit for the crowd of people to diminish, and then we made our way through the door as well. We emerged on the bark of the tree on the outside. The branches all around us wove in a strange pattern so that it almost looked like we were inside of a great bowl about three hundred and fifty feet from one side to the other. Unlike the auditoriums that the school had used for Novice Magecraft and for the announcement earlier in the year, this had long wooden benches, rather than full seats. There was enough room here that the four hundred or so students and teachers were all scattered throughout, with plenty of space between each of them, and I was able to breathe a bit easier.
I glanced around, and only then did I think to open my third eye. I didn’t see anybody with a taint of the Starless Night on them, but I couldn’t properly see the entire arena. I did notice great wards circling the upside-down dome, stopping the biting cold and whipping winds.
Everyone sat there, shifting and waiting, until someone pointed at the sky. They said something that I didn’t hear, but the murmurs quickly passed through the crowd.
“Comet?”
“Meteor?
“King?”
I looked up and spotted it. In the sky, a speck was hurtling towards us, growing larger every second. Within a minute, it had resolved into the shape of a massive hemisphere, made of such thick and condensed force magic that it was smokey in color. Inside of the hemisphere were about twenty people. Two of them, a human man and an aster woman, stood on podiums above the others, who were ringed around them. The man wore a red and purple cloak that rode down to the floor as well as a golden breastplate, crown, and scepter. The woman wore a far more sensible-looking suit, with a rapier at her side. Each of the soldiers around them was in full plate and carried a musket and a shortsword.
I opened my third eye to get a proper look as they approached. The entire spell was some sort of communal force effect, being maintained by the soldiers. All the soldiers I could see had force rune bonds, and each of them had two stars hanging in their Aura, above their head. Their armor bore what looked like a metal magic foci, their muskets held a force magic foci, and their swords each seemed to be an artifact.
The foci and the artifact were both of exceptional quality. The foci were true masterworks of skill, and the artifacts looked to be almost as complex as my own cloak. My mind boggled at the sheer cost that it would take to outfit a squad of twenty with an artifact and two foci apiece.
And the guards were the weakest on the platform. King Thomas’s power, an off-white color, filled the dome and the sky beyond, easily fifty times the size of Osheen’s, and it was thick enough that it looked solid. He had five stars above his head, and both his crown and scepter were imbued items, each giving off a sense of power that boggled the imagination, and even though I didn’t think that they were meant to be weapons, I couldn’t be sure. His force rune bond was the size of two men standing on their shoulders, and it spun around him slowly.
Nearly as powerful was the woman at his side. She had a dark gray, nearly black Aura, which intermingled with the dark gray-brown of a stone elemental familiar. Her blade was an artifact, though it looked to have multiple effects layered on it—at least three. Her earth rune bond was even larger than the king’s and moved faster through her Aura. Most curious of all, however, was that there appeared to be three marbles floating around her head, gently swirling. Each of them looked as if it was bound in place by a spell, and they gave off a sense of…compression. I wasn’t sure how else to put it.
There was a blast of air as the hemisphere came to a stop in the middle of the field at the bottom of the arena and slowly landed, then vanished. The king began to speak, and I saw power of wind, sound, and mind flowing from his scepter and into his words. His voice echoed across the space. It wasn’t loud but rather omnipresent as if he was everywhere in the arena, and the magic seemed to play at my mind, demanding that I listen to what he had to say.
“Friends and allies, it is good to see all of you here today once again,” the king began. “As I am sure that you are all aware, this nation is coming into a time of great strife. Much as the forces of Bradlewyr tried to destroy us some three hundred years ago, today the forces of Zheren rest fitfully at our borders, ready for us to let our guard down so they may strike like a serpent waiting for the great lion to rest.”
Idly, I wondered what the Prince of Zheren thought about that. I couldn’t imagine a positive reaction.
“The people of Paerús have always been proud of our military. We are a strong people, whose righteous power is a gift of our powerful mages. And for those of you who have survived this year, and who have grown in power, herein lies your chance to prove your loyalty and devotion to your home. It is well known that this school holds a combat final to weed out those who are unworthy to be called mages of this great nation and that one of our Archmages sponsors it. This year, in light of events, I have elected to sponsor it myself, along with our beloved Duchess Chantal. Rejoice, for you have an opportunity quite unlike those that any who have come before you have seen in centuries. Furthermore…”
The king smiled. I wasn’t sure how I could read the expression on his face—perhaps it was yet another effect of the scepter—but I knew he was.
“For those of you who have done the remarkable feat of gaining a star, be you in your third or fourth term here, I offer you this. Should you pass the second round, you will have an option to enter my service as an officer in the military, at least at the level of sergeant, and then of higher and higher rank, depending on your performance. This is in addition to the standard prize for passing the second round.”
He held up a hand, and the crowd’s excited muttering muted as more power flowed from the scepter.
“Which brings us to an accounting of rounds. I have decided thusly. For the Journeyman students, your first round shall be…”
He went on, listing each year, and even with the power of the scepter, I found myself zoning out, my mind returning to the projects that I was working on, at least until he reached the Novice students.
“For the Novice students, your first round shall take four days. You shall be split into two groups and brought out to an area for your battle. One group shall be placed in a small bastion, and another shall start in the plains near the bastion. Each shall be given one day to strategize and prepare, and then they shall be set loose. The group within the bastion must defend it with any means necessary. The group outside must conquer it. Whoever is in control at the end of those three days shall be declared the victor, and everyone on their team shall move on to the second round.”
The king clapped, and that too echoed through the arena. It sharpened my attention.
“Some of you may be inclined to hold back. Everyone there will be under my protection. Use lethal force. I will save your fellow students from death, fear not. And you should use lethal force, for if you fail to pass that round, you receive no greater than five points for the combat portion of the test. Do not worry, however! In an effort to be fair, those of you who fail the first round will be offered a chance to enter a loser’s bracket of one-on-one duels, where up to ten additional points can be earned.”
Yeah, sure. Fair. That would favor any of the noble kids, who would have been brought up with years of dueling practice and training. But I supposed the nobles wouldn’t be too happy with their precious children losing their future due to a bit of bad luck in the first round.
“Now, the second round shall be a survivalist challenge. My knights and I will clear an area of forest from the…abominations…that currently haunt it. It shall be filled with traps and the more ordinary monsters that normally dwell within, and you must survive those traps, monsters, hazards, and anything or anyone who may seek to do you harm. The ten who survive longest shall be placed into the third round, as well as receive a Journeyman-level boon from my own armory.”
I noticed that he hadn’t forbidden us from attacking other students in the second round. If anything, he had encouraged it. In my estimation, that was probably even more deadly than the traps and monsters.
“The third round shall be a battle royale between those ten. The last three shall each receive an audience with me and may ask a favor of me. And with that, I conclude my speech. Good luck! Prepare well! I shall see you all as soon as your finals are finished.”
The king then vanished. He didn’t teleport, but he built a force-based flight spell around his legs so fast and flooded it with so much power that he blurred away. His knights once again formed their flying platform, and it rose into the sky.
Idly, I wondered how he managed to take off so fast without shattering his legs. Maybe it was something to do with an arch-star? Or maybe there was some way to spread the effect out, rather than having it hit his legs? With how fast he had moved, I hadn’t had the time to examine the spell, but I supposed that it didn’t really matter one way or another.
People slowly trickled out of the arena, and I waited with Osheen until they were mostly gone. I rested my head on his shoulder as we waited.
“What would you do if you won?” I asked.
