by Dante King
Creation Mage 3
War Mage Academy 3
Dante King
Copyright © 2020 by Dante King
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
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Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
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About the Author
Chapter One
I sat at the counter in the cavernous kitchen of my fraternity house, my cup of Ifrit Special Blend coffee placed in front of me as the fragrant red and orange steam rose from its deliciously dark surface. I was trying to keep my excitement in check and play it cool, but anticipation of what the day might bring just kept building. It was the same sort of itchy, adrenaline-fueled expectation that I imagined a drinker who sat minding their own business at a bar in the Old West might feel, just before the first punch was thrown and the guns started firing. It was the feeling that, at any minute now, something was going to happen. Something that was going to flip any plans that you had made for the day up on their heads.
“What time did he say he was going to be here?” Bradley Flamewalker, one of my fraternity brothers, asked me. Bradley was an aristocratic High Elf from one of the oldest and wealthiest families in Avalonia, a Fire Mage and an incredible cook. He and I had got off on the wrong foot when we had first met—he had been in a murderous rage and had tried to kill me, which I always consider to be rude and a slight cause for tension—but after that rocky start, he had been embraced into the fraternity as the ‘low-man’.
I took a sip of coffee, savoring the warm, invigorating burn that Ifrit’s Special Blend delivered as it kicked my sleepy neurons awake. “Well, he said that he was going to be here at the stroke of nine,” I said.
Bradley slipped a couple of pancakes onto my plate, then turned his perfectly coiffed head to regard the old-fashioned clock on the wall. It was half nine.
“Punctual,” Bradley said. “I sure as all hells hope he isn’t my real father,” he added under his breath. “There’s only one thing worse than tardiness in my opinion, and that’s serving a white wine with beef or a red wine with the fish course.”
I shrugged and grinned. “Hey, the guy is a goddamn Chaosbane, Brad. I think it’s safe to say that, as far as that family goes, I’d be impressed if he turned up on the right day. Let alone the right time.”
Bradley snorted, turned back to the massive black range, and gave the pancakes on the stove a casual flip.
“I have to say,” Nigel Windmaker said, putting his finger down on the page of the grimoire he was poring over and pushing his spectacles up his nose, “the prospect of Igor Chaosbane’s arrival has filled me with a certain vim this morning!”
I looked at the halfling Wind Mage, noting the way that he was positively quivering with suppressed eagerness. It was either that, or he’d had too much of the coffee. Nigel was the smartest of our small fraternity of five, with a keen mind that wasn’t so much a step ahead as it was down the road, sitting at a cafe, and doing the crossword while it waited for you to catch up with it.
“Yeah, well, you’re not the only one, Nigel,” I said.
Nigel took a bite of his avocado and black garlic on sourdough, almost swallowing it whole in his haste to reply. “O-o-of course not!” he stuttered—a sure sign that the orphaned Wind Mage was pretty revved up about the morning’s activities. “I mean, it’s an indubitable fact that the fraternity needs this Rune Mystic to work his magic. Otherwise we’re going to be left in the metaphorical dust when it comes to War Mage training.”
“It’s true, bro,” Damien Davis said, “if Igor doesn’t come through with the goods that he promised you when he said that he’d be your sponsor—those runes that will mean that we can actually summon monsters into our dungeon when and as we need them—then we’re not going to be able to upgrade our abilities.”
Damien’s own cup of coffee was steaming in his hand as he waved it around to emphasize his point. As a human Fire Mage, and a particularly hot tempered one at that, no hot beverage that he held ever went cold. That was all well and good when it came to the morning coffee, but a bit of a pain in the ass when it came to a nice cold beer. The average time that a beer stayed undrunk in Damien’s hand was about two minutes, due to its tendency to warm up and take on the same flavor as horse piss—the problem that all Australians battled with during the summer months back on Earth, or so they said.
A subterranean rumble echoed from over by the chunky scrubbed wooden dining table. This was the sound that usually heralded Rick Hammersmith, the enormous Earth Elemental who had a penchant for Earth Magic, hitting us with a bit of his slow, thoughtful Island wisdom.
“No training, no new spells in our grimoires, friend,” he said in his deep bass voice. He wasn’t looking in the rest of the frat’s direction, being too busy with the mountain of food heaped on a couple of plates in front of him. His thick dreadlocks hung about a head that looked as if it had been cut from a quarry. “The Inscribers won’t even consider giving new spells to those that haven’t any access to a working dungeon.”
“Indeed,” Nigel said, watching with scientific interest as Rick appeared to inhale a Belgian waffle in its entirety, “the Inscribers at the Mazirian Academy are well known for erring on the side of caution. They don’t like to risk okaying a spell for a mage who wasn’t sufficiently experienced for the incantation.”
“Nothing creates more paperwork than having some overeager dingbat laminate themselves to the ceiling, I guess,” Damien said, sipping his coffee.
“Still, we have a saying for such non risk-takers back on my Island,” Rick rumbled, mopping up the yolks of about half a dozen eggs with a slice of ham an inch thick.
“I thought you might, big man,” I said. Observing Rick eat was always a fascinating business. You always found yourself watching him, wondering if today would be the day when he left something—anything—on his plate.
“Some say that it rankles Chaosbane no end that the Inscribers are so cautious when it comes to handing out spells,” Bradley said. “‘Doesn’t hold with the jolly, balls-to-the-wall attitude of the Academy’, to quote the Headmaster. I’ve heard it’s because the Inscribers are outsourced by the Academy.”
“We say those sort of folk, even if they were whisked up and melted down, couldn’t be poured into a fight,” Ric
k said.
“Whisking and melting?” I said. “Why do most of your sayings sound like recipes, man?” I looked meaningfully at his double breakfast.
The others laughed.
Rick popped two fat sausages into his mouth, in the same way that a normal-sized person might eat a couple of Cheetos Puffs, and gave me a stony look from his calm green eyes. “What you talking about, friend?” he rumbled thickly, spraying bits of pig in all directions.
“Look boys,” I said, “the fact is that Cecilia and I won those War Mage Exhibition matches, right?”
The others nodded.
“Right,” I said, “and that counts for something. Sure, we might not have a poltergeist as of this moment, but the next best option is for us to get some protective runes carved into our dungeon floor. Igor Chaosbane is a Rune Mystic and just the man for the job.”
A telling silence greeted these words.
“He is the man for the job, lads,” I said. “Yeah, he’s a Chaosbane and about as predictable as a hormonal Lindsay Lohan, but he said that he’s going to sort us out, and I believe him. You just wait and see, he won’t let us down. Next thing you know, you’ll be getting new spells inscribed and we’ll be kicking the shit out of our classmates in the finest tradition of a War Mage Academy.”
“All right then,” Bradley said, flipping the last pancake in Rick’s direction and turning off the stove flames with a snap of his fingers, “I guess we’ll see.”
“Besides,” I said, “everyone knows that it pays to have an eccentric genius in your corner. Haven’t you ever seen Sherlock Holmes?”
“What’s a Sherlock Holmes?” Nigel asked with interest, leaning forward and polishing his glasses.
“I saw that movie,” Damien said. He was the only member of the fraternity who had ever been to Earth and, as such, was the only one who knew what I was referring to when I made these sorts of references. It seemed he didn’t know that Sherlock Holmes had originally come from a book and not a movie. “Holmes was an insane, depressed, drug-addicted alcoholic who wasn’t adverse to sipping on embalming fluid to take the edge off reality, wasn’t he?”
I shrugged grudgingly. “Yeah, but he was a handy dude in a tight spot.”
“Anyway, we already have a genius in our corner.” Bradley nodded at Nigel.
“Yeah, but for all his qualities—and I mean this in the nicest way—Nigel isn’t nuts,” I said.
“I could be nuts,” Nigel said.
“With all due respect, Nigel,” I said. “I’ve taken shits that were nuttier than you. You’ve a cool head on you, and that’s a good thing in a tight corner.”
At that moment, our conversation was interrupted by the sound of the front doorbell clanging.
“Ah,” I said, getting to my feet. “I imagine that is the very man himself.”
The doorbell clanged again. And kept on clanging.
We’d recently made a habit of locking the frat house up at night. This became a thing since we’d played a prank on our fraternity enemies—Arun Lightson and his cronies, Qildro, Dhor, and Ike—which had culminated with them drinking tainted ale and making sweet, tender love to a fine selection of pigs from the local village of Nevermoor.
Now, I hurried to unfasten the numerous locks and slide back the bolts that secured the heavy oak doors while the infernal clanging of the bell continued.
I wrenched open the heavy portal and found, just as I had suspected, none other than Igor Chaosbane, standing on the welcome mat. He was the cousin of the much-revered Headmaster of the Mazirian Academy, Reginald Chaosbane, and the family resemblance was uncanny. He was dressed in the same shabby duster that I had seen him wearing at the Exhibition Games, where he had promised to be my sponsor if I won. The Chaosbane piercingly dark and enigmatic eyes were so bloodshot and watery they looked like a couple of poached eggs coated in tabasco sauce. His much broken nose appeared even more crooked in the crisp morning light, and the enormous blonde mustache that sat below it like some sort of dead ferret was in total disarray. There was a faintly alchemical smell coming off the disheveled man, as if he had just walked out of a fire in a paint factory.
In short, Igor looked about as good as a sack full of assholes.
All in all, a promising look! I thought.
Despite the fact that I had opened the door, Igor continued to stand there and ring the bell. His glassy red eyes stared dazedly into space.
“Igor?” I said.
Nothing.
“Igor!” I tried again, yelling this time and clapping my hands in front of his face.
Igor jerked, blinked a couple of times, and gave a sort of snuffling snort. “Wha— Who? Not today, you devils!” He gave his head a little shake. His eyes found my face. Then he said, with the suaveness of a man who’d been invited to tea by the Queen of England, “Ah, Justin! There you are!”
“And here you are, Igor,” I replied. “In body at least.” I held out my hand.
After squinting at my proffered hand for a moment, Igor rummaged in his pocket and pulled out an empty bottle of something called Stale Slammer Scrumpy and handed it to me. I wasn’t sure why he’d given me the bottle, but I figured it best not to ask. Better to have the man stay on task. Anything that would take him away from drawing regeneration runes in our dungeon was best avoided.
“Very kind of you,” he said, belching richly. “May I come in?”
“Sure,” I said, opening the door for him and allowing the blonde-headed man to step over the threshold. “How are you feeling?”
“Ah, yes, you may well ask,” Igor replied as I placed the empty bottle on a chair in the entrance hall. “I seem to be suffering from a touch of the flu.”
“Flu? It’s not contagious is it?” I asked.
“Not this flu,” Igor said. “This is wine flu—one of the worst kinds, second only behind man-flu.”
“Ah, bit of a hangover, huh?” I said.
“Ah, my boy, to call this a hangover is to do it a great disservice. This is to hangovers what Barry Chillgrave was to piracy—the leader in his field.”
“Speaking of Barry Chillgrave and all things poltergeists,” I said, “since we don’t have one, I suppose we better get started on the dungeon’s regeneration runes.”
“Regeneration? Runes?” Igor said, looking momentarily befuddled. “Ah, yes, of course. The whole reason that I’m here! Yes, of course. You don’t have a poltergeist to act as a steward of your dungeon and so here I am; a Rune Mystic capable of carving the regeneration runes into your dungeon so that, if you die in training, it need not be forever. Regeneration is quite a key component to War Mage training, otherwise the lessons you’ll learn will be extremely finite.”
“And it’s much appreciated, let me tell you, man.” I clapped Igor on the shoulder and propelled him toward the kitchen door.
“Justin,” Igor said, “that banana-brained cousin of mine, Reginald, spoke very highly of you, and yet your performance, I think, surprised even him. So, it’s safe to say that you have earned any help that I can give you.”
“That’s nice of you to say, Igor,” I replied. “Hold up one minute while I gather the boys, will you?”
I stuck my head through the kitchen door and told my fraternity brothers to hurry up and follow us down to the dungeons.
“And Nigel,” I said, “can you run up to my room and grab a few vials of Warrior’s Salve? You know what the fucking dungeon has been like lately. No doubt something gnarly is going to come out of the woodwork, and I’d rather be prepared.”
“You g-g-got it, J-Justin!” the halfling stuttered and hopped down from his stool.
When I turned back to face the main atrium of the fraternity house—a building which I had learned was, in fact, my parents old pad transported to this hilltop by Headmaster Chaosbane—I saw that Igor was kneeling down. I peered over his shoulder to see that he was patting the little purple and mauve striped sabertooth cub that had followed me back from the kingdom of the Gemstone Elementals after one
of my first real adventures.
“Ah, my, my, my my, what is your sort doing here, hm?” Igor crooned at the little animal, as it wound in and out and around his shins. “You naughty little changeling, I wonder if my dear cousin is aware that you are slinking about the Academy, eh?”
Igor looked up then and caught me staring at him. A funny, quizzical sort of look flashed behind his bloodshot eyes, and he gave me a wry smile. He patted the sabertooth cub on the head, then shooed it away with a good-natured wave of his hand.
“An interesting little beast you have there, Justin,” he said as my frat bros gathered behind me. “It’s not often that you see one of those around these parts.”
“No?” I asked indifferently, watching the sabertooth cub disappear around an open door that led to the study area in which we kept the beer-pong table. “I thought it was just a groovy looking cat to be honest.”
“It’s a stray?” Igor asked.
“I guess you could say that,” I said. “It followed us home one day.”
“That’s right,” rumbled Rick from over my left shoulder.
“Ah, I see,” Igor said.
“Anyway, Igor, these are my fraternity brothers,” I said. “Damien, Rick, Bradley, and Nigel is the vertically challenged dude just coming down the stairs now.” I pointed each frat bro out in turn. “Fellas, this is Igor, my new benefactor.”
“A pleasure,” Igor said. “Delighted, charmed, etcetera.”
“How’re you going, friend?” Rick said pleasantly.
