by Sever Bronny
“I reiterate, you’re casting a spell not baking some smelly cake no one but a dog is going to eat.”
A cringing Jengo wasn’t spared either. “If I catch you mispronouncing concutio del alarmo one more time, Jengo, I’m going to shorten you by a whole foot, so you’ll be half-giant,” then she added in a mutter, “but you’ll still be the tallest goof in the kingdom.”
“And you two!” she snapped, whirling on Augum and Leera, who had been holding hands at that moment while leaning in for a secret kiss. “Stop manhandling each other like a pair of newly-minted gladiators and focus. If I wanted awkwardness I’d step back into my father’s old hut and ask him why he still walks around the neighborhood in his undergarments.” She shivered. “Gross. Like two pigeons—” She made her hands attack each other. “—doing gross things.”
Augum elbowed Leera, who was crinkling her nose in disappointment. “Finally found something you two don’t share in common.”
“I’m kidding,” Jezebel said. “I don’t actually care how much you face suck each other—or whatever it is you disgusting teenagers do nowadays—as long as you’re learning. Are you learning?”
Augum and Leera nodded enthusiastically.
“Are you having fun?”
They nodded again.
“Well stop having fun, it’ll ruin my reputation. Go back to learning.”
Leera giggled.
“All right, you two, you may continue to—” She did that hands-attacking-each-other gesture again. “—do whatever it was you were awkwardly doing.” She returned to correcting Jengo, muttering, “Nasty teenagers …”
And so it went, spell after spell, just covering the basics, for the entirety of that morning. The trio learned a bit about Mute, Seal, Object Invisible, and Elemental Armor, all very exciting spells. With the Seal spell, they each practiced the gesture on a door. Augum had specifically chosen the famous Sealed Door, just so he could begin to think about the mystery of opening it, only to be called out for it.
“Stop drooling on that door handle, Stone, I want to see precision in that gesture when I come around to check. And you can stop imagining you’re going to get in. No one’s been able to open that door in near a century. Not even your famous great-grandmother could get in. Might as well head butt it with that squishy brain of yours, might knock some sense into you.”
For Object Invisible, the trio sat themselves before the classic practice object—a rock—and carefully went over the mental arcane layers of the spell while their hands worked away making smoothing gestures over their stone, as if they were adding multiple layers of clay.
“Do you ever wonder who came up with the names of these spells?” Jezebel asked, pacing around them while they practiced, hands behind her back. “Kind of oafish, don’t you think? ‘Object Invisible’. That’s like calling an arcaneologist a ‘magic-looker-upper’. Just dumb, am I right or am I right?”
“Jezebel, we’re having a really hard time concentrating here,” Haylee said, a hand covering her snickering mouth.
“Then maybe you should stop laughing, you little jerks.” She nudged Augum with her foot. “Your goal is to cover the object like you’re covering hot, delicate bread with a cloth, Stone, not trying to smother a baby.”
“How come you keep calling us by our last names?” Augum asked daringly, also suppressing laughter.
“Because I’m playing mentor, Stone. Outside of here I might call you by your forename, if I bother at all to acknowledge your existence.” There was a hint of her perpetual mischievous smile, so they knew she was joking. “But in here, you’re slaves to my whim!” She made a whip-cracking gesture. “Mush! Learn faster! Mush!”
For the Elemental Armor spell, Jezebel had the trio imagine they were summoning their shields, but instead of having the shields appear on their arm, they were to imagine their whole bodies enveloped.
“But the spell is far trickier than that,” Jezebel went on, pacing around them. “There are complexities to imagining every single part of your body covered in whatever goop you got going on. Speaking of which, were those pond leaves I saw with your Shield spell earlier, Jones? Anyway, unlike Shield, this spell requires a phrase and perfect visualization. You’re going to be playing with the big boys and girls here, kiddies, able to take a fireball to the face or a lightning blast to the butt.”
They were having so much fun with her they didn’t notice the hours flying by. And outside, Mrs. Stone was seen mentoring Leland as he summoned squad upon squad of Occulus’ old undead army dressed in matte black Dreadnought armor.
“No one ever piss that little tyke off,” Jezebel remarked while watching Leland work. “Liable to knock the whole castle down with that nutty old army of his.”
Jez flicked her nose as the group readied for lunch. “All right, I’ve got work to do and I’m tired of looking after you drooling sacks.” She glanced behind her at Mrs. Stone and Leland, who were finishing up outside. “Tell old cranky-pants I’m off to do something really important for the Resistance, even though I’m really going to have a cup of red at a most disreputable dive tavern while training some moron on elementary arcanery. Seriously, these wannabe necromancers … if only you knew. Feral dogs are smarter. Anyway, then I’ll be doing it for real—stealing supplies from the Legion, that is.” She was muttering under her breath now. “And I still have to teleport in stuff for some stupid advancement ceremony tonight for a bunch of know-nothings and supposed ‘heroes’.”
“Hey, that’s us!” Leera said.
“Oh, really? I’m sorry, monkey, didn’t realize you were in the room. But seriously, I’m late for a very important appointment with a cup of Titan red. It’s a lunchtime ritual best not ignored, lest the Fates mess with my luck.”
“But do you have to go?” Leera and Haylee whined with puppy dog eyes.
“Sure I gots to go,” Jezebel said in a country accent and a dramatized head bob. “Somebody’s got to bring home the bread,” then she added in an undertone, “literally.”
“We’re going to study with you more though, right Jez?” Leera pressed. “Pwetty pwease?”
Jezebel folded her arms. “Not sure how I feel about torture.”
“We’re not that bad, are we?”
“Just slightly more pleasant than a molten lava bath.” She winked. “We’ll see, but I make no promises. If there’s even a smidge of fun to be found anywhere else in the entire kingdom, count me out.” She made a grand gesture. “I mean the entire kingdom better be completely depressed and out of fun. If there is no fun to be had anywhere at all, in any rat hole or dive tavern, anywhere—”
“—I think we get it,” Leera muttered, apparently unsure if Jezebel was being serious.
“You sure? Because I could go over that whole part about fun again, and how important it is that said fun is available.” She ruffled Leera’s hair. “Just kidding, monkey. All right, good luck to you all, pay attention, study very hard—I’m serious, on that note, if you study hard, I’ll consider training you again—oh, and one last thing—don’t be like me.” She winked and began to stride out the door before whirling about, making a pronged gesture at Augum and Leera. “And you two. Less of this when you’re studying—” She made the hands-attacking-themselves gesture again, much to the amusement of Bridget, Haylee and Jengo, and the red-faced embarrassment of Augum and Leera. Jezebel flashed a crooked smile, adding in a whisper, “But only when you’re studying,” before striding out, muttering, “Nasty teenagers,” and teleporting away just outside of the manor.
“You know,” Augum said, crunching down on a carrot, “I think she likes us.”
An Old Mystery
After lunch, Mrs. Stone continued their training while Leland took a nap, exhausted from the morning’s Agonex summoning. She covered more of the detail portion with each spell, though without any of the humor, making concentration more difficult. But she wasn’t harsh either, only patient and precise, and imparted as much wisdom as her tiredness allowed. She sat in a chair observin
g carefully, occasionally making comments, giving the trio, Haylee and Jengo equal attention in their different spells.
“Mute is a somewhat personal spell in that you must feel the opponent’s vocal chords being arcanely snuffed while you make the squeezing gesture,” she said at one point to Bridget. “And pronunciation must be perfect, of course. Luckily, it is an easier spell to pronounce than some others. Voidus lingua. Let us practice it together.”
The trio already knew a lot about the spell, having had to defend against it repeatedly during their training in Mind Armor, and thus it came rather easily. Seal was another matter. It required a new way of interacting with the arcane ether.
“You must consider the arcane energy as a glue,” Mrs. Stone said as the trio each sat before a door. “The ether must create a kind of suction between the frame of the door and the door itself. The spell is excellent for escaping from an enemy, but as always, it will lapse, quickly for the apprentice, less so for the adept.”
She had excellent points to make on Object Invisible.
“In this case, the arcane ether works like a blanket to cover the object. It is not unlike the Elemental Armor spell, in that the arcane energies are used to envelop a surface, though like that spell, it too expires. It is, however, deceptively complex,” and she went on to explain the intricate and advanced nuances of Object Invisible.
But Mrs. Stone’s keen insights and ability to tackle the crux of a spell are what made her a legendary mentor, as evidenced with Elemental Armor, which they practiced by summoning their shields and then slowly changing the shape, an odd thing for the trio to try.
“This is not the standard way to learn this spell, but I find it more effective. It is something you will be doing until the spell has fully engulfed your arm, then your torso, and finally your body. When it has consumed you, it becomes true arcane armor and strengthens tremendously. However, as I dare say you shall discover, it will take diligent practice.”
They worked hard, focusing on everything she said. Mrs. Stone at first seemed to feel well and strong, but then she started to tire, wheezing, even barely able to speak. And as she tired, she began to suddenly glance into the shadows, only to catch herself and return to the task at hand.
“Perhaps it would be wise to rest, Mrs. Stone,” Jengo finally said in the middle of the afternoon.
“Perhaps that would be wise,” she said, coughing. “I shall have a nap in the sunshine, if you do not mind.” Jengo helped her outside.
“Weakest I’ve ever seen her,” Haylee said with a troubled voice.
The trio said nothing, merely looked on as Jengo laid her down beside Leland in the grass. The sun drenched them, reflecting brightly off her shimmering robe. Jengo then stood nearby minding after her, perhaps worried about her health.
Bridget suddenly withdrew her Exot orb and spoke into it. “Yes, my lord?” She got up and slowly paced off, giggling at some joke Lord Bowlander said, adding, “I can’t really talk right now, my lord …”
“He really likes her, huh?” Haylee said while Bridget chatted. “But didn’t he hang out with Malaika and Charissa last night?”
Augum and Leera immediately traded looks just as Bridget said, “Cease contact,” into the orb, and came back over. “What’s with you lot?” she asked when Augum and Leera avoided her gaze.
“Did, uh …” Leera pointed at Bridget’s bulging pocket that held the Exot orb. “Did Bowlander tell you he hung out with Malaika and Charissa last night?”
She shrugged as she sat down. “He mentioned it.” She glanced between the two of them. “Oh, stop it, he’s not like that.”
“Oh. Okay.” Leera gave Augum a look saying perhaps they overreacted, something he didn’t completely disagree with.
“Anyway,” Leera went on, “these new spells are great, but we’ve been hammering away at them since early morning. Can we look for that key?”
Bridget bit her lip in thought. “Why not. We’ll work on the spells tomorrow.”
“Let’s start searching then,” Augum said, and so they began, Jengo shortly joining in after seeing Mrs. Stone fall asleep.
The group split up to cover more ground. It was filthy work. Everything was covered in cobwebs and caked in a layer of sticky mildew and dirt, as if the manor had been occupied by pipe smokers. Shelves were so old they tended to fall apart, even after a repair. Books were stuffy tomes on subjects like ancient literature, poetry, or history.
At one point, there was a screeching “Ow!” upstairs before a loud tumble. Everyone rushed up to find Haylee on the floor in a wide room with dirty windows and loose parchment bits strewn all over the floor.
“There’s something invisible in here!” she said, dusting off her bottom with one hand while blindly searching about with her other. She soon snagged something and felt around it, everyone else carefully joining in.
“It’s that famous table One Eye accidentally made invisible!” Leera said with a snort. “How silly!”
“Maybe it’s hiding the key inside—” Augum said in conspiratorial tones.
For a moment they all looked at him before frantically pawing the table’s every surface.
“We look ridiculous doing this,” Haylee muttered, “like we’re miming in some play.”
“Nothing here, it’s clean,” Bridget said with an exasperated sigh.
“Besides, would Unconceal not have led us to it anyway?” Jengo said.
“He’s right,” Bridget said. “Just because it’s invisible shouldn’t stop it from being found by Unconceal.”
After that, they used Reveal and Unconceal often, though few objects would have survived in a house only ever occupied by warlocks, all of whom at this degree would have easily been able to find anything purposefully hidden.
And that’s when it hit Augum. He had been searching one of the small battlements, head ducking under a truss as he kicked open a moldy footlocker filled with practice swords, reminding him of Fentwick, when he realized a simple truth with the Unconceal spell—it only finds objects purposefully hidden. And then after thinking about exactly who might have really brought back the key, it all tumbled into place. He rushed to find the others to pass on this little revelation.
“I’m sure they didn’t just lose an important key like that,” Leera said, kneeling before a coal bucket she had been pawing through. She wiped her sweaty cheek with the back of her hand, leaving behind a black streak.
Augum licked his thumb and cleaned her cheek while she squirmed. “But think about who brought it back here.”
“You mean Jordan Winters,” Bridget said, shoving a beaten old dresser back against the wall. “What does that matter?” she asked absently as she began rifling through the filthy drawers, a disgusted look on her face.
“Didn’t Mrs. Stone say he was the one who sealed the door?” Haylee asked while examining one of the armored statues that were supposed to come to life for training purposes, though the trio hadn’t gotten that far in the training yet.
“That’s my point,” Augum said. “She wasn’t sure which one of them brought the key back.”
“So?” Leera said, returning to rooting about the coal bucket.
“So … what if she was mistaken, and it had been William Smith the Plotter—One Eye—who brought it back?”
“I don’t understand,” Jengo said. “Who’s One Eye again?”
“Mrs. Stone’s kooky old friend,” Augum said, raising a finger. “But he was also the one who made that table permanently invisible.”
Bridget slammed the last drawer shut and looked at him. “Are you saying he cast another permanent invisibility spell on the key and then … lost it?”
Augum shrugged. “Why not? She said it herself, calling him a ‘clumsy absent-minded fool’.”
A sooty-faced Leera flipped her wrist as if about to argue, only to freeze in thought. “Huh. Maybe.” Then she sneezed and a cloud of soot came off her.
“Worth a shot, isn’t it?” Augum said.
An
d so they began searching anew, this time kicking at the floor with their feet, hoping to find that invisible piece of iron, or pawing at otherwise obviously empty shelves.
“Gah!” Bridget shrieked after upending a log only to see a mouse scurry out. “Ugh, this is fruitless, we’ve searched the whole place already three times—”
Jengo pointed at the scurrying mouse “Look …”
They turned their attention to where the mouse had gone.
“So?” Leera said, wiping her hands on a random cloth she had found. “Just a hole in the wall.”
“Yes, but look which wall,” Haylee said.
Sure enough, it was the wall joining the Sealed Door.
Augum raised a brow. “If the mouse can get in …”
“… then so can we,” Bridget finished, corner of her mouth curving upward.
They immediately set to searching the walls, looking for anything like a secret door or hidden hinge, but there was nothing.
“Wait, this is a manor, right?” Bridget asked.
“So?” Leera said.
“So it’s got to have a cellar of some kind.”
“And the old types of manor cellars were usually only accessible from the outside,” Haylee said. “Brilliant.”
They ran outside, careful to be quiet around a snoozing Leland and Mrs. Stone, lest they wake her and she’d want to go back to the castle. Sure, they were all looking forward immensely to the Advancement Ceremony, but a mystery was a mystery!
They slowly circled the manor, searching the walls and ground with both Reveal and Unconceal for any sign of a door. Not too far behind them roared the great cascading waterfall.
“I think I sense something,” Bridget whispered, hand wavering delicately in front of her. “The spell is faint and very old.” She led them to a large thorny bush. “Behind here.”
They telekinetically shoved much of the plant aside, then Augum and Leera summoned their elemental swords and began cutting. The bush was soon cleared, revealing a nondescript mortar wall.
Augum raised his hand and organized his thoughts in line with the Unconceal spell. “Un vun deo.” Indeed a faint ethereal tug brought him to a particular large stone. “It’s this one,” he said, tapping at it.
