Over the next twenty minutes, Ruethwyn kept refilling her flask with water and splashing it over the runes on the floor and walls, causing them to dissolve almost instantly as their magic came undone before they could force the water back. It took some time, but eventually Ruethwyn had destroyed enough of the runes to be able to pass the remainder. She imagined it’d take Yalline a lot longer, but most of the class should find the problem relatively easy to solve.
Opening the door, Ruethwyn found herself confronted by a long tunnel, lit by the same indistinct radiance, and she sighed as she started down it, seeing how it curved some distance ahead of her.
Ruethwyn rolled her shoulders, trying to relax the knotted muscles over her spine, then stowed the flask and started forward, murmuring. “Well, no time like the present.”
Walking down the hallway, Ruethwyn paused as she realized it wasn’t quite as quiet as she thought it had been. She’d always found pure silence to be oppressive, and even the sound of running water wouldn’t help completely. Listening closely, though, Ruethwyn could hear what sounded like the faint whispering of wind through trees and the burbling of a creek. It wasn’t perfect and might be part of the test, but even those soft sounds made her feel better. With a smile she continued onward, feeling a little more confident.
The trip quickly began souring her mood, though, as the route was hardly straightforward or short. The tunnel twisted and turned seemingly at random, then rose and fell sharply at different points while growing narrower… it was long and aggravating. Likely to ruin the day of anyone who brought too many things with them, she imagined.
Eventually, the tunnel widened slightly, and shimmering light came from ahead of Ruethwyn, light which was stronger than what she’d seen so far. Ruethwyn’s pace quickened, and she finally entered another room, this one far larger than the first.
The vaulted ceiling over Ruethwyn’s head was much higher, and dozens of crystals scattered across it lit the room, making the room look almost like a geode. On the far side of the room was a passageway, but it was covered by a rippling barrier of magic with three large, empty crystal orbs set into the wall around it. More interesting was the glowing writing carved into the walls on either side of the barrier.
Ruethwyn glanced to her left almost as an afterthought and paused as she saw a fire pit, complete with a large supply of wood, and an area of earth covered in a thick carpet of soft-looking grass, along with another of the fountains from before. It was obviously a campsite, and the sight of it made her smile wryly as she murmured. “Is this one of the locations they expect people to have trouble with, then?”
No one answered, as Ruethwyn expected, but under the circumstances, she decided to at least set down her pack. Even if it was a problem she could easily solve, it had been a very long day so far, and she’d rather rest in an obvious camping spot than somewhere that wouldn’t be as comfortable.
She took a few minutes to set things down and stretch, her legs aching after the long day, then Ruethwyn took a deep breath and approached the barrier and the writing around it. As she came closer, she saw there were words written above the barrier as well, and they were quite simple.
“Summon three elementals to open the path. Each must be of a different sphere, else the path remains barred.” Ruethwyn read the words aloud, then smiled and shook her head, murmuring. “Well, that would ruin the day of most of the others… though at least they didn’t give a test like this without reference material.”
Glancing to either side of the doorway, Ruethwyn smiled as she saw the information listed. While it didn’t go over the basics of summoning, all the information needed to summon an elemental of ten of the major spheres was listed on the walls. Only the spheres of energy and necromancy were excluded, and Ruethwyn could understand why. The sphere of energy didn’t have any elementals to summon, to her knowledge, while the sphere or necromancy… well, summoning the dead was heavily restricted because of how poorly it could go.
“An interesting way to do it. Just one would be easy for an over-focused student, while two might be chance. I suspect this one might take some people a while,” Ruethwyn murmured, smiling and shaking her head. “I think it’s time to set up camp for the night, though. I can do this in the morning.”
With her focus on summoning and her contracts, the one thing Ruethwyn wasn’t concerned about was summoning. Other tests might be more difficult, but that one would only take an hour or two to pass.
So Ruethwyn unrolled her bedroll and prepared to sleep, even as she murmured. “I wonder how long the test is?”
Passing the summoning test had been just as easy as Ruethwyn had expected, but the path after that had been far more difficult to deal with. No more than a hundred paces after the barrier, the corridor had come to an end and a rope ladder had dangled from a hole in the ceiling. For a few moments, Ruethwyn had thought it’d be simple enough to get up, but then she’d tried to climb the ladder.
After falling flat on her back, with a fork poking her painfully in the side due to the impact, Ruethwyn could do little but glare at the rope ladder. She hadn’t expected the bottom of it to twist right out from under her as soon as she’d put her feet on the ladder, but now that she thought about it, it made sense. It was the nature of the ladder to move when she put her weight on it, but that didn’t make her any happier.
Eventually, after several abortive attempts to take the easy method of climbing the ladder, Ruethwyn finally gave up and used the brute force method. Casting a spell to levitate, she pulled herself up the ladder and to the tunnel passage above before continuing on her path.
The tunnel had quickly given way to a vast lake, over which floated a variety of stone blocks, as well as drifting saucers in bright colors. Each of the blocks was inscribed with runes, and Ruethwyn had paused before moving on, as the runes on each were different, making the task more difficult than it might seem. It looked like there were at least a dozen paths to the opening on the opposite side of the lake, but it could be trickier than it looked, especially since there was another campsite nearby.
Some of the runes would barely hold the weight of the block, and if she jumped onto them, they’d fall into the water. Others were designed to repel anyone who came close. Still others were designed to attract the saucers like projectiles, which wouldn’t be much fun. The saucers weren’t much better, though from the looks of them, someone might be able to use them to get across as well… but Ruethwyn didn’t want to chance that. Even finding the path didn’t help too much, as Ruethwyn had another major obstacle in her path.
The obstacle in question wasn’t one she could easily deal with, either. Her lack of depth perception made the jumps tricky at best, and while she could summon one of her contracted elementals to help, unless she took full avatar form, it wouldn’t actually solve the problem. Avatar form was a possibility, but Ruethwyn didn’t want to do that with as much stress as it’d put on her fragile mana core. So instead, she took the time to prepare a water-repelling spell on her backpack, then began on the route she’d charted out.
The first fall into the lake had nearly ended with a broken nose, and after applying a bit of healing salve, Ruethwyn had decided that she’d had enough of the intended approach. Summoning Zaria into her mind, which produced the curving patterns of magic across her skin that accompanied atavism, Ruethwyn had suffered through the elementals amusement before getting her help with her plan.
A platform of ice had been easy to create in the lake with the ice elemental’s assistance. Then she had used magic to propel it to the other end of the lake. Zaria had noticed the repulsion runes just below the lip of the exit before Ruethwyn had cast another levitation spell, and between them, they’d managed to drain the mana from the runes for long enough to get up to the exit. After bidding the elemental farewell, Ruethwyn had continued down the hallway, annoyed but in reasonably good shape.
The tunnel she went into was similar to the ones she’d been going through before, and Ruethwyn sighed
in annoyance before taking the time to remove her boots and socks to dry them out. She wasn’t going to go through the remainder of the day with wet socks. Not that she was entirely certain how much time had passed… the lights in the complex were steady and constant, which prevented her from keeping track easily. It might be deliberate, to keep students from getting desperate as the test continued, but it was unnerving as well.
The tunnel was boring, but at least it was simple, and Ruethwyn continued down it, wondering what the next test would be. Her curiosity became impatience as the tunnel started going on, and on, and on… and then she realized something was odd. Something about the walls was… off. Like they were different somehow, and she stopped to examine them more closely, frowning. It took her a surprisingly long time to realize what it was, and the moment she did, Ruethwyn swore under her breath, because she could see depth again.
“What in all the hells?” Ruethwyn muttered, frowning. “I shouldn’t be able to sense any depth, not unless… is it a mind sphere enchantment? Something to alter what I’m seeing?”
Considering for a long moment, Ruethwyn finally pulled off her pack and searched through it for one of the books she’d brought with her. She wasn’t that versed in breaking enchantments which were already affecting the mind of someone, so she needed something which could help her shape the spell properly.
It took about ten minutes for her to find the spell in question, and another twenty to read through it in enough depth to be confident of casting the spell, but Ruethwyn persevered. Once she had a good grasp of the spell, which in this case was a variant of an energy sphere spell to draw foreign magic out of her mind, Ruethwyn began the casting slowly and carefully, wincing at the sensation of pins and needles using mana caused her. The sensation of the world shifting around her was… odd, to say the least, but as the spell completed, Ruethwyn let out a foul curse at the sight around her.
She was still in the tunnel, but rather than a slowly twisting corridor, she was instead in a circular tunnel with an entrance and exit, and hundreds of runes were carved into the walls. The runes were easy to decipher, at least enough to get the gist of things, and Ruethwyn scowled at them.
“Oh, that’s just evil. Making you think you’re walking through an endless corridor, when you’re just going in circles…” Ruethwyn muttered, glaring at the runes balefully.
Still, now that she knew the spell was there, she could get out, and Ruethwyn quickly headed for the exit, which was at least clearly marked, and emerged in a small room that was another camping area. To her surprise, another door blocked the way forward, and next to it was another inscription.
“The twilight maze lies before you, and danger lurks within. Prepare yourself before braving its depths. The exit lies beyond,” Ruethwyn read aloud, then let out a sigh, murmuring. “At least they’re straightforward about that. I guess another rest is in order… and I am rather hungry.”
Preparing her camp, Ruethwyn pulled out her rations and debated which to eat. Not that any of it was very appetizing, but she needed her energy.
“Hmm… not bad, Ruethwyn,” Essryl murmured, now sitting under a tree a few dozen paces from the structure. She was rather comfortable with the spells now and had been watching with interest. Ruethwyn’s near-failures had amused her slightly, as they showed the erstwhile student’s weaknesses.
“Not to say that most of the others are doing well in comparison… has the young man still not made it out of the first room? It’s been a full day and a half!” Essryl added, guiding her spell over to view Tadrick again. The young man had been damaging the runes with his sword for quite some time, and getting thrown backward regularly, but he might actually get enough velocity to pass it in a few more hours. She couldn’t help clicking her tongue in disapproval.
Ruethwyn was certainly the farthest along, and the last test wouldn’t prove terribly taxing for her. A forest maze with a modest number of wolves chasing her was hardly a challenge fit for Ruethwyn, in Essryl’s opinion.
“I think this needs to be improved a touch. Ruethwyn needs to face a true challenge… something that will prepare her for the future,” Essryl said, then smiled broadly. “In fact, I know just the thing to do.”
Essryl doubted Ruethwyn or her teacher would approve, but that was fine. They didn’t need to approve.
Chapter 17
As she finished packing, Ruethwyn glanced over at the door again, a sense of anticipation rising inside her. She had no idea what the final test would entail, since the inscription warned of danger, but despite that, once she passed the test Ruethwyn would be free to go north. Sure, she was planning to travel with Sella, but that wouldn’t take long to arrange, even if Korima was tagging along.
But for now Ruethwyn needed to focus on the test instead, and she hefted her backpack with a grunt, strapping it on awkwardly and getting it properly settled into place. Ruethwyn was curious if she was the farthest along or if one of the others was doing better. She thought that the test most likely to slow the others down was the summoning test, since most of them didn’t focus on three spheres.
“Alright, time to go,” Ruethwyn murmured, checking the ring on her finger. It wasn’t her new shield ring, since that one was designed for fire, but was instead one of her older ones. A forest shouldn’t be full of fire, anyway. She’d pull out her wand, but that would be in the way for the moment.
Walking over to the door, Ruethwyn took a deep breath and slowly unlatched it. The moment the door opened, Ruethwyn could smell damp vegetation and the cries of birds echoed from the dimly lit forest in front of her.
The door opened from a cliff face, and in front of her was a strange forest. There was a broad path where two wagons could pass each other, and the lighting was much like that which was shed at twilight. More surprising were the trees, though. Each of the trees were several feet thick, and they were far taller than they should have been, towering hundreds of feet into the air as they formed near-impassable walls with vines scattered between them, coiling and filling many of the gaps.
Ruethwyn blinked, looking to either side and seeing how the path split, and gaps in the walls allowed it to meander through the forest, then smiled, murmuring. “I suppose that the name twilight maze is accurate, at least. Not what I expected maybe, but accurate.”
Letting the door close behind her, Ruethwyn flicked her wrist and caught her wand as the spring-loaded sheath launched it into her grasp. She wasn’t willing to be taken by surprise, and it was easier to have a weapon in hand than to have to get it out in an emergency. Slowly she walked into the middle of the path and looked upward, murmuring. “I wonder if there’s any way to tell where the exit might be…”
The light appeared to be coming from the direction directly ahead of her, but that didn’t tell Ruethwyn much, not without knowing which way was north. Thinking of that, Ruethwyn cursed under her breath.
“I should have brought a compass. I never learned a spell to tell which way was north, either!” Ruethwyn muttered, scowling. “Still, there’s no way to be sure that north would even be the same here. I’m in a created world, after all.”
Despite that, Ruethwyn found herself thinking back to some of the lessons her mother had given her. In Mellesyn, the last thing her mother had wanted was for Ruethwyn to accidentally wander north-west as a child, so she’d tried to teach Ruethwyn a few methods of telling what direction north was. One of them, Ruethwyn remembered, was that moss tended to grow thicker on the north side of a tree.
“It isn’t like I have anything else to go off of,” Ruethwyn murmured, and she slowly approached one of the trees, looking at them warily. It was always possible that some of the danger was from the plants, but she’d learned a lot about them from her mother.
The vines, while thorny, didn’t look like any of the poisonous ones Ruethwyn knew about, so she slowly relaxed and focused on examining one of the trees, then the next one over. Each of the trees had a fair amount of moss on them, but when she looked closely, it
did look thicker on the left side. Since the light seemed to be coming from directly ahead of her, that implied she was facing east.
“Let’s see… if I remember right, the entrance to the halls was on the south side of the building. I’m going to assume the entrance would be somewhat symmetrical to the door I took… so it should be somewhere directly east of me, and a bit to the south,” Ruethwyn guessed, though she didn’t feel especially confident this time around. “Not that there’s much of a guarantee I’m right. It’d just figure if the exit is random.”
The sound of a twig snapping to her right caused Ruethwyn to spin away from the trees, her wand snapping upward as she did, cursing her blind spot internally. As she spun, she saw what she thought was a wolf, the canine figure gray and semi-transparent with shadows inside it, while its eyes glowed with a silver light. It snarled at her but Ruethwyn didn’t hesitate, activating her wand as it lunged forward.
A flash of blue light surrounded the dark mahogany wand, and a lance of water flashed through the air like lightning to strike the wolf. The wolf spasmed in mid-air and fell to the ground a few feet away, twitching several times, then it slowly began to dissolve as the magic making up its form began to dissipate.
“Okay… that wasn’t expected, but I guess it makes sense. Wolves belong in a forest,” Ruethwyn murmured, her heartbeat racing a bit as she took a deep breath. “I just didn’t think an opponent would show up so suddenly.”
There was a howl in the distance, then another, and several more. At the sound of the wolves, Ruethwyn cursed, glancing at the wolf near her again. They must be magical constructs, to make students more at ease when attacking them, but she didn’t like the idea of fighting more than she had to. No matter how easy the wolf had been to defeat, enough of them could take her down. Fortunately, she had a spell which would make it harder for them to track her, even if she hadn’t been thinking of wolves when she learned it.
Queen of Ice (Through the Fire Book 2) Page 14
