Guild Mage 113

Chapter 113: Two Tests

Celestria looked Liv up and down.  “You are not the first person to ask me that,” she admitted, brushing a lock of her raven hair back over her ear.  “All of the others were boys, however.  And it was pretty clear what they were actually after.  I’m not interested.”

Someday, Liv resolved, her cheeks would not burn every time she was embarrassed.  If she had to master a spell just to make it happen, she would.  “I’m not interested in you, either,” Liv said.  “I’m done with that, at least while I’m here.  Archmagus Loredan seemed to think that I could work to build up a sort of resistance over time.”

“Given how you were practically drooling during examinations, I’m not sure you have much hope of that,” Celestria remarked.  “Then again, I’m not an archmage.  What’s in it for me?”

Liv opened her mouth, then realized that she had no idea what she was going to say.  Perhaps the reason House Ward had such a reputation for getting the better of negotiations was not entirely due to their word of power.  “You’re going to have to begin practicing silent spells, sooner or later,” she said.  “It’s one of the big things that Advanced Grammar and Spellcraft is focused on.  I could get you a headstart.”

“You would be in that class, I suppose,” Celestria said, as much to herself as to Liv.  “You’ll tutor me in it?”

“I will.” Liv nodded.  “Actually, I think we can practice both things at the same time.”

“You’re going to need a chaperone,” Celestria demanded.  “Non-negotiable.  Honestly, I kind of want you tied to a chair or something.”

“I can see to that,” Wren broke in, wandering over from where she’d been waiting for Liv.  “I’ve got ropes and everything.”

“...where did you get ropes?” Liv asked, then shook her head.  “Nevermind, I don’t want to know.  When can you meet?”  She turned back to Celestria.

“Second Day evenings?” the other woman proposed.  “After dinner.”

“Done,” Liv said.  “Thank you.”

“Let’s see how it works, first,” Celestria told her.  “If you’re tackling me every five minutes, I’m calling it off.”  She turned to walk away, and Wren stabbed a blunted practice dagger at Liv’s stomach.

Without time to speak, Liv raised her arm to parry, and found a blade of ice held in her palm.  The blunted dagger rebounded off her sword.

“That’s the first time that actually worked,” Wren observed.  “Maybe you just need to be distracted by something pretty, so you’re not thinking about it.” 

Liv just stared at the sword.  “I’m not going to be able to do that again when I actually want to, am I?”

☙

The day after Genevieve Arundell arrived at Coral Bay, all classes were dismissed so that the students could attend Master Jurian’s test at the training grounds.  Word must have gotten out to the citizens of the town, as well, for crowds of commoners packed the spaces in between the stands, and children perched on the shoulders of their parents.

Liv sat with Rose, Teph and Arjun, and Wren slipped into the row just behind them, where she could lean down over Liv’s shoulder.  They’d gotten there early to claim seats on the front bench, bringing a basket packed with breakfast pasties, fruit, and a bottle of wine to pass around.  The professors trickled in, one by one, taking their places in chairs that had been set up at the center of the packed earth field.  Annora, Blackwood, Norris and Every were eventually joined by Genevieve Arundell, making a panel of five masters.  When Jurian arrived, he was escorted by the archmagus, who surveyed the crowd for a long moment.

“If it’s just about fighting, he’s got this,” Wren commented.  “He’s a tough old man.”

“Aren’t you older?” Liv whispered to her, but was only shushed in return.

“It isn’t just fighting,” Teph said.  “In fact, it’s hardly like fighting at all, from what I understand.”

“Students,” Archmagus Loredan began, raising his voice to be heard over the crowd, “professors.  Mistress Arundell, and people of Coral Bay.  It is not often we are privileged to conduct such a test as you will see today.  The requirements to be recognized as an archmage are stringent, set down by the first to hold that rank, Edythe Blackstone.  The testing comes in two parts.  In the first, Master Jurian is required to perform a spell that utilizes two words of power simultaneously.  To be clear, this does not mean to cast two spells in close succession, or two simultaneously - but to actually merge two distinct types of magic into a singular result.”

He turned to Jurian, who waited, staff planted on the ground, in the center of the training yard.  “What two words of power do you intend to work with, Master Jurian?”

“Aluth,” Jurian answered, “the word of raw magic; and Cei, the word of sleep and dreams.”

“That’s to be expected,” Liv commented, keeping her voice low so as to not interrupt.  “Those are the two words the guild is legally allowed to practice, and he recovered one of them.  But they’re a strange combination.”

“Do you require any preparations to demonstrate the spell you have crafted?” the archmagus asked.

“I need a volunteer, and the assistance of Master Annora,” Jurian said.  “I’ve already spoken to her, and she is prepared.”

Loredan nodded his head, then swept his gaze out over the crowd.  “Do I have a volunteer?  I have been assured there will be no danger to you.”

Liv started to raise her hand, but Wren grabbed her by the forearm and held her down.  “Bodyguard decision,” the huntress told her.  “I can’t stop you from doing most of your ridiculous ideas, but here’s one risk I can prevent.  Just watch.”

“Fine,” Liv grumbled.  “It’s probably easier to tell what the spell does if I’m not out there, anyway.” 

In the end, Hubert Carver, who Liv had so thoroughly thrashed during their examinations, volunteered.  He was given a pillow, made to lie down in the dirt of the training ground, and given a sleeping tonic by Professor Annora.

“In order for the spell to function,” Jurian explained, for the crowd as well as the masters who would judge him, “the subject must be asleep and dreaming.  We’re going to give Hubert a moment to drift off.  Gamel, bring out a few targets.”

Journeyman Gamel, and a few of the others who taught basic and remedial classes, hauled out straw archery targets, and arranged them at one end of the training ground.  Once Jurian was satisfied, the journeymen left the field again.  When he turned back to Hubert Carver and Professor Annora, the steely-haired woman nodded.

“He’s asleep,” she said.  “Will be for the next few hours, at least.  Your journeyman can carry him off and put him to bed after you’re done with him.”

Behind Liv, Wren gave a shudder.  “Are you alright?” Liv asked, turning back to get a look at her.

“I’ve had about enough enchanted sleep as I ever want,” Wren said.  “If I’d known this was the sort of spell he’d come up with, I might have gone off and taken care of other business.”

“I’m just impressed she can calculate how much of a sleeping draught is needed off the top of her head,” Arjun said.  “Too little and he wouldn’t go under; too much and he might never wake.  I suppose she gets a lot of practice, though.”

All of them turned back to the practice field when Jurian planted his staff next to the boy’s head.  Liv leaned forward to try to catch his words, but the professor was speaking softly, and the noise of the crowd made it so that she couldn’t parse the incantation.

Next to the two men - Professor Annora had now taken her empty seat, while the archmagus had withdrawn to one side - wisps of blue and gold poured out of Jurian’s staff.  The swirling cloud of mana whirled above Hubert, then began to take on a shape.  Liv squinted - an animal of some kind?

All at once, the mana snapped into shape.  A ghostly boar, enormous, staggered next to Hubert and Jurian.  It looked half butchered, but still alive, with great cuts still leaking golden blood, and a massive cleaver sunk into its shoulder.  The boar tossed its tusks as if in pain, shook its head, and then charged the middle target.

It appeared nearly insubstantial, so Liv was surprised when the magical boar caught the straw target on its tusks, lifted the entire thing off the ground, and then threw it.  As it rounded on the next target, the crowd gasped and drew back in horror.  Jurian’s staff was extended now, following the passage of the mystical creature - or perhaps guiding its movements.  When the third and last target had been destroyed, Jurian lowered his staff, and the boar dissipated.

“The spell draws forth the nightmares or dreams of the subject,” Jurian explained, “and then uses mana to create a construct from those images, under the control of the caster.  I actually originally considered it as a means of showing a person’s memories, but it turns out that nightmares make for good soldiers on a battlefield.”

Archmagus Loredan turned to the five masters who sat in judgement.

“The spell uses two words,” Professor Blackwood said.  “We’re not here to evaluate how powerful or useful it is.  He’s done what he needs to do.”

“I think it could be quite useful,” Annora said.  “Think about patients who are unconscious, and cannot wake.  It’s the closest thing to the ability to communicate with them that I’ve yet seen.  Imagine if we could give a dying person one last chance to speak with their gathered family, even if they were unable to wake.”

“I vote no,” Genevieve Arundell said, her voice flat.

“On what grounds?” Blackwood asked.

“I am not required to justify my decision,” the court mage to the royal family said.  “It is his obligation to convince me that he deserves this title.  He has not done so.  I do not find this spell sufficient.”

“It may not be a written requirement,” Professor Every said, “but it is the custom, and expected.  I would like to hear your reasoning.”

“The spell is not a true combined effect,” Arundell responded.  “First he accesses the dream, and then he creates a construct of mana.”

“I could hear the incantation,” Professor Norris said.  “The effect was simultaneous.  Perhaps the noise of the crowd prevented Magia Arundell from hearing clearly.  I am satisfied.”

“As am I,” Every said.

“Four in favor, and one against,” Archmagus Loredan counted.  “The first test is passed.”

“This part was never really in doubt, was it?” Rose asked.  “ I mean, if he didn’t have a proper spell ready, he’d never have made the challenge in the first place.  I figure the next part is where we really see what he’s made of.”

Once the journeyman had carried off the snoring Hubert Carver on a stretcher, to sleep Professor Annora’s potion off in the infirmary, the test proceeded.  “Four the second trial,” the archmagus explained, “Master Jurian must demonstrate absolute control over the mana within five feet of his body, as tested by no less than three masters.  Professors, Magia Arundell, might I have volunteers?”

To Liv’s utter lack of surprise, Genevieve was the first on her feet.  She strode out onto the packed earth of the yard, leaving her empty chair behind, and set her staff on the ground, facing Jurian as if she intended to duel him alone.  After a moment, Professor Blackwood rose and joined her, and then Professor Every.

“Do you think they’re all going to use the same word?” Tephania asked.  “Aluth?”

Liv shook her head.  “I doubt it.  Maybe one of them, but I’m almost certain Arundell’s from a noble family, at the very least.”

“If Sidonie was here, she’d know the word,” Rosamund remarked.

“Master Jurian, are you prepared?” Archmagus Loredan asked.  Jurian simply nodded.  The archmage backed away, and then called out, “Begin!”

Professor Blackstone started with a spell familiar to every student at the college, even if they couldn’t cast it themselves yet: half a dozen blades of shining blue mana flew from his outstretched hand, straight at Jurian’s torso.  Rather than create a shield to block them, Jurian simply closed his eyes and exhaled.  The mana-blades dissolved, just as Liv had watched him overcome the attacks thrown at him by the other students in her class.

Professor Every raised her right hand, as if to grab something in front of her, and squeezed. “Sevētis!” She shouted, and even Liv felt an unseen, crushing pressure reach out for Jurian.  

“What did she say?” Teph asked.

“I hold you,” Liv translated.  “I’ve never seen anyone use that word before.”  Nevertheless, Jurian remained unmoved, unaffected, simply standing in place and taking slow, deep breaths before exhaling again. 

A sudden bright light drew Liv’s gaze to Genevieve Arundell.  Arms spread wide, staff held in her left hand, the court mage was surrounded by a coruscating array of golden light.  It was Aluth, Liv recognized, but for some reason the court mage’s mana-constructs were nearly entirely gold, with only thin veins of blue - while most people’s use of the word displayed the exact opposite colors.  Her eyes shone, as well, matching the color of her magic, and her graying hair lit up, as if the sun was just behind it.  In that moment, Liv understood how Master Jurian could have fallen in love with the woman.  She was, quite simply, magnificent.

Swords, spears, axes, polearms and hammers, at least a dozen weapons all coalesced in an arc that hung above and behind Genevieve.  With a wave of her hand, the weapons shot forward, falling on Professor Jurian in succession, as rapid as drops of rain during a storm.

Liv wondered whether one of her walls of ice could stop such an assault: if she was being honest, she doubted it.  Three or four of the weapons, perhaps, or even the entire volley, if it came at a slower pace.  But the assault was simply unrelenting.

Somehow, each and every piece of magical weaponry dissolved into mere wisps of mana before ever hitting Master Jurian.  At the count of six, Liv shook her head; at nine, she couldn’t help but grin.  “He’s amazing, isn’t he?” she asked her friends.

After the final spear dissipated, Archmagus Loredan stepped forward.  “The second test,” he began, but before he could finish, he was interrupted.

“I’m not finished!” Genevieve Arundell shouted.  A blade of yellow mana extended from the end of her staff, slightly curved but no less wicked for all that.  “Veftō!” she shouted, and streaked forward faster than the eye could follow, just as Anson Fane had when he faced Liv during examinations.

“She has at least three words,” Liv realized.  A flare of blue and gold erupted from the field, and she saw that Master Jurian’s staff now ended in his own blade of shining blue mana, straight where Arundell’s was curved, and that he’d caught her attack in a bind.  For a moment, the two of them wound their weapons around each other, first week, then strong, seeking an opening.

“Why are you doing this, Jen?” Jurian cried out.

“Because it’s my duty to the guild!” the woman shouted back.  They broke apart, and began to circle, spinning their staves, now turned into polearms, through a succession of guards, each looking for a weakness.  “You’re reckless and arrogant.  It’s bad enough they let you teach these students, but I refuse to see you have any more power.”

“Let it go!” Jurian begged her, forced to parry a sudden, vicious attack.  Liv realized that Genevieve had launched the strike at full speed, and aimed for his heart.  This was no longer a sparring match, or a test, if it ever truly had been.  Now, it was a fight that was deadly serious.

“Let Daniel go?” Genevieve roared, spinning into a follow up strike.  “Let Lora go?  Like you let them die?”

“It was a lifetime ago!” Jurian growled, moving from parry to riposte.  Unlike the woman he was fighting, Liv could tell that he was seeking only to disarm, or to wound.

“He’s holding back,” Wren said.  “She’s trying to kill him, and he’s still holding back.”  Behind Liv, the huntress stood from her seat.

“What are you doing?” Liv asked her.

“We should just let her kill him?” Wren protested.

“You can’t go in there - you don’t even have any magic!” Liv told her.

A crack sounded, echoing across the training ground, and Liv turned back to see that Genevieve had caught Jurian across the mouth with the butt of her staff.  He was on his knees, the blade extinguished from his own weapon, one hand to his mouth, covered in blood.  There was something on the ground that might have been a tooth, but Liv was too far away to be certain.

“Enough!” Archmagus Loredan shouted, striding onto the field.  Above the college, dark clouds gathered, and thunder rumbled.  “The test is complete.  You will step back, Magia Arundell, and you will lower your weapon.”

“Or what?” the woman asked, her eyes still blazing gold.

“Or you will face me,” Caspian Loredan said.  A bolt of lightning fell from the sky, striking his staff, and remaining there.  It was as if the archmage held pure light given form, crackling in his hand, restrained only by the strength of his will.

For a long moment, Liv wondered whether the woman was angry enough to do it.  She had no doubt that if Genevieve Arundell did not back down, the archmage would strike her down where she stood, leaving nothing but a scorched and blackened patch of dirt in her place.  What would Prince Benedict do, when he found out?

The golden light around Genevieve flickered and died.  “Fine,” she said. “But remember this moment, Caspian.  Everything that happens after this is on your head.”  She turned around, stormed off the field, and the crowd parted to let her pass.