by Eric Ugland
Viggo pointed at the stone.
Nelson picked it up, and set it on the desk.
Viggo waved the man away, and Nelson left the room quickly.
We were alone again.
“I do not like you,” he said.
“I’m not a huge fan of myself either,” I replied.
“But you have not been lying to me, and I cannot quite tell if you are clever and have fooled me, or if you have had a stroke of luck.”
“Might be a mixture of the two. But I am still willing to trade buildings with you.”
“Your one building for the entire block?”
“That’s the deal I’d like.”
“What is wrong with that building?”
“Besides once housing an old thieves’ guild that masqueraded as a cookie factory? Nothing. It’s in pristine condition.”
He stared at the stone as I spoke, I think looking for even the slightest evidence of a fib. And yet, as far as I knew, I was telling the truth. The stone was dark, unchanging in the slightest.
Viggo shifted his bulk in the chair, and looked down at his little journal where he got another written reply.
“You win this round,” he said. “I have been swindled most assiduously. Perhaps not by you, but you are certainly the beneficiary. So I think it is fair to say I am rooting for your failure. Both as a group and personally.”
I thought about saying something rude in return, but it almost seemed like he was hoping for that. Maybe he wanted to get some sort of rise out of me, something to where he could more readily blame me for his own stupidity. I wanted to tell the man that he’d played himself, that he was the idiot in this game, and he could have definitely gotten a lot out of me if he’d just had the patience to actually make a deal instead of trying to corner me.
“I’m sorry you see it that way,” I said. “But I will agree to ten years, right of first refusal to any of the properties in that block, should we decide to sell.”
He frowned, but then nodded once. “Deal. Now give me my deed and get out of my sight.”
I stood to open the door and let Matthew and Nelson in.
“We’ve got a deal,” I told Matthew. “We get all the buildings on the block and he gets the old cookie factory.”
Matthew’s face didn’t change in the slightest. He just nodded at me, but I could tell he was surprised, and pleasantly so.
“So let’s put some paperwork together,” Matthew said with a polite smile. He pulled out the deed to the cookie factory from a slim leather valise.
Chapter Forty-Nine
While Matthew got into the weeds of the deal, figuring out what tenants had what leases, trading deeds and keys, and all the good but boring stuff I was happy to let someone else handle, I went for a midday meeting with The Fayden. He wanted me to meet with him on the daily, and I wasn’t about to mess it up. Besides, I was really excited about the prospect of actual magic lessons.
I did have one other errand: finding out where Rowland’s house was. The late Rowland Tamblyn. But that meant going back to the Heavy Purse, and if I went back to the Heavy Purse, I’d have to deal with all the people there, people who most certainly had things they’d want to talk to me about, and things I’d have to help them with. And sure, I might be able to pick up some quick quests, but I didn’t really want to do things for other people right then. I wanted to better myself. Plus, going back there would mean one of my tjene would insist on coming with me. I’d have Mornax shadowing me, and that just seemed like more of a pain in the ass than a help. Or, worse, I’d have Mornax and Klara following me. It just wouldn’t do. Not right then.
I made it to the secret door, knocked, and waited.
Nothing happened.
Part of me wanted to go back to the well and see if that route was still functioning.
But, it was also possible no one was around to hear me. So, I figured I might try being impolite. I just opened the door. It wasn’t locked.
I sighed, and headed down the ridiculously long staircase.
I got to the bottom and entered the hall. It was empty, and the silence felt like it echoed around. Like being in Grand Central in those few hours when trains weren’t running. Even though I was pretty good at being sneaky, my footsteps seemed to ring through the open space.
“Oh!” a voice called out. “You are here.”
The Fayden seemingly stepped out of thin air. His hair was an absolute mess, and it looked like his mustache had his own thing going on, sticking out at a weird angle.
“Did I interrupt you?” I asked.
“Always,” he said, patting me on the shoulder. “But you are always welcome here.”
“Oh, um, thank you?”
“Bah, no need. Come,” he said, walking quickly towards, I mean, nothing, because it was just wide open space in there. ”We have much to do!”
He led me to the other end of the hall, through a very thick door to what looked like a room that had been through more than one battle. The walls were heavy stone, and, in some places, covered with metal plates. Pock mocks were everywhere, as well as soot stains from explosions, and even holes deep into the walls and floors from what I had to assume was acid.
“The practice room,” he said, leaning into the heavy metal doors to shut them. They made a deep, resounding thud. “Plenty of space to destroy things and learn. Maybe. Hopefully. Or not. But, here you are, and I am rambling on and on. Let us do magic!”
And just like that, the lessons, and the fun began. It was much more intense than anything I’d done with Careena. We started with warm-ups, and Maximus helped me move the mana around my body, around the channels. He told me how to do things safely, and observed what I’d already figured out on my own.
He helped me get the mana rolling around, moving through my body, and gave me some tips and tricks for storing mana. Which felt very strange, because it was all so ephemeral. Just thinking, really. Thinking about compressing the magic and storing it, imagining that spot of magic being in the corner of my torso. And then storing some more in another corner. We did this over and over, just pushing magic around my body, until I got a notice.
Congratulations! Due to hard work, you’ve increased your mana efficiency.
My mana went up significantly, and I had the feeling that mana efficiency altered, in some capacity, the equation that determined my mana storage. So that was pretty damn cool.
Then we started casting very simple light balls, tossing them around the room and getting them to stick on walls and ceilings. I had a little trouble, because I couldn’t keep as many light balls going as he wanted. It required a new spell each time, and keeping the concentration on more than one spell was impossible. At least for me.
Naturally, the master wizard just threw ball after ball around the room like it was no big deal until there wasn’t a spot left to have a ball stick to. So he stuck them to me, just to show that he still had more concentration left.
I sighed.
“Need to work on that,” he said.
I nodded.
We moved on, doing more basic work, which I didn’t mind, focusing on counterspell. Which seemed very basic and very easy — just learn the counterspell spell, and then you can counter the spells someone else cast. But, like everything with magic, there was actually quite a bit more to it than that. Like, for example, you needed to know what kind of magic was being used. Which meant I learned that there was quite a bit different magic in the world, and, if The Fayden was to be believed, quite a bit of different magic outside of this world. Fairies, for example, had a fully different style of magic than anyone in this world, largely because they came from their own slice of the universe, a place called the Feedoheem.
Some of this I knew, and some of this I suspected, but I just let him teach me as if I knew nothing. I wasn’t about to try and seem like I was a know-it-all in front of a dude who’d been slinging spells since the beginning of the Empire.
In a very basic sense, Counterspell worked one of two ways. The easier wa
y was a simple brute force sort thing. You just cast the counterspell and then tried to overpower the other person. But it requires substantially more magical oomph to do that if you have no idea what spell you’re canceling. It’s almost like a reverse tug-of-war, pushing spells around. The more nuanced approach works better, tends to have less explosive outcomes, and doesn’t require you emptying your magical reserves to make it happen. But the nuanced approach requires a ton of magical know-how. You have to know the style of magic being cast, plus the actual spell being cast, and then you can usually just sever the spell at an early stage. Sometimes leaving the magic to zip out into the world unbidden, but mostly causing a magical aftershock in the caster.
Which was another thing I got to learn about, the hard way. Magical aftershocks are what happen when you fail to complete a spell. The mana you gathered into the spell has to go somewhere, and if you’re caught by surprise with a counterspell, or more commonly, are just knocked out of concentration, that magic has to go somewhere. Usually back into the magician. Which can be fine if you’re ready to catch it, but it can also give yourself a right wallop. Which is what Maximus The Fayden called it. A right wallop. Sometimes it was a tingle of electricity just rocketing across my skin. Other times, it felt like an invisible fist hit me in the face.
“You need to know when to hold it,” The Fayden said, “and when to—“
“Fold it?” I finished for him.
“Had not thought of it that way, because I don’t really see what you would be folding in this instance. But if that helps you remember, fine. Know when to hold it, know when to fold it. Otherwise, you’ll be in the middle of some fun, forget what you’re doing, and blow your face off.”
“I’d rather that didn’t happen.”
“Me too. It is quite the mess to clean up.”
“You’ve seen it happen?”
“That and worse. Magic is terrible to mess around with.”
“But don’t you mess around with it?”
“It is also amazing. Amazing and terrible. Perfect description of magic. Now, get back to work!”
Over and over we practiced, slinging spells around. Mostly just balls of light or globs of water. Me trying to guess what he was casting so I could cut if off. When that failed, I just poured magic out at him. It was basically impossible working with him because he was so much better at everything. He had seemingly endless reservoirs of mana, endless ways to cast spells, and a repertoire of spells that made my mind hurt trying to think of what it would be like to have to memorize everything.
I kept running out of mana, and he would get angry and tell me that I needed to level up, that it was embarrassing that his apprentice would have so little mana. And then he’d pull a mana potion out of an invisible cupboard that he somehow carried around with him, pour it down my throat, and we’d start all over again. Rinse and repeat all through the day until, at some point, there was a brief reprieve when his wife brought us sandwiches and a refreshingly cold citrus drink.
The little dragon-like guy, Snickers, came in with Mrs. The Fayden. Snickers got quite the talking-to, because apparently Snickers was The Fayden’s familiar, and The Fayden was feeling a little jealous at the amount of attention Snickers was lavishing on Mrs. The Fayden. Also, Mrs. The Fayden looked the same, a beautiful young woman, though this time she had a tight ponytail of green hair, which matched the heavy emeralds she wore all over herself.
“After how long the two of you have been practicing,” she said, “I thought it might be time for a break.”
“How you know your husband,” The Fayden said.
“A thousand years? I ought to have a good notion of you by now.”
“A thousand years?” I asked. “I can’t imagine that.”
“Slightly more than that, really,” she said. “Although he was quite old when he wooed me.”
“Not that old,” The Fayden said.
“Two hundred?” Mrs. The Fayden asked.
“I cannot rightly recall.”
“You chose to forget your age so you never had to admit to yourself that I was a thirty-year-old woman and you were nearly ten times my age.”
“That is ridiculous. I have never chosen to forget anything.”
She rolled her eyes at him, and scratched Snickers between the horns.
“Are you done with him for a while?” Mrs. Fayden asked as soon as I’d eaten a sandwich.
“I am if you wish to take over.”
“I’m sorry?” I asked.
“My wife would like to do her part of the instruction now,” Maximus said. “And I have things to do. Snickers!”
The little dragon snatched the remains of my sandwich from the tray, and then practically bounced out after his master.
“So, magic,” Mrs. The Fayden said. “Fun?”
The two were very similar, which I suppose is somewhat inevitable given the amount of time they’d spent together. But they were also markedly different in peculiar ways. I would have guessed that The Fayden was more along the lines of a hard tactician, someone who followed the rule exactly, trying to get everything to happen the exact same way every single time. Doing his best to corral the chaos that is magic into order. But he was much more into the froux-froux nature of magic, of feeling his way through casting spells and channeling power. It was refreshing, but it meant I was not at all prepared for the exactitude of Mrs. The Fayden. Where The Fayden had been willing to let me figure things out, Mrs. The Fayden gave me precise amounts of mana to use on each and every spell, and instructed me exactly where I should release the magic from out of my body.
That was next to impossible. Use a single point of mana to make a tiny mote of dust glow. It took me two hours to get that right, and by the time I’d mastered what seemed like a remarkably useless little spell, I was exhausted. Covered in sweat, my head aching, my knees weak, and hoping beyond hope that there was an extra pitcher of citrus-ade hidden somewhere in the bowels of their home.
There was not.
She looked at my fatigued form with a vague hint of a smile on her face. “You begin to see the joys of magic, eh?” she asked.
“Sure,” I said weakly from my spot on the floor. “It’s magical.”
She shook her head. I had the feeling I was in trouble.
But then the doors creaked open, and The Fayden walked in.
“Is he still alive?” The Fayden asked, a wide smile under his huge mustache.
“I think so,” I said.
“Did he pass muster?”
She waggled her hand in a rather non committal nature. “He is learning,” she said. “But he has so many bad habits.”
“Wait until you see his spell list,” The Fayden said. “Shadow realm spells.”
She just shook her head. “Ugh.”
Then, she walked past The Fayden, giving him a little affectionate squeeze as she went.
“Darn it woman,” The Fayden said, scowling after his wife, “I am trying to be a serious mentor.”
She called for Snickers as she headed towards the stairs.
“More?” I asked from my spot on the floor.
“Just a little experiment,” he said, rubbing his hands together. “Come with me!”
Chapter Fifty
I followed the little old man and got to see a little more of their home. It wasn’t a normal place to live, that was obvious. The main living area wasn’t the hall. That was up a flight of stairs and through a large archway. There was some sort of magical barrier that existed within the arch, because even though I could see through it, I couldn’t hear anything happening on the other side. And something was certainly happening there, because I could see Mrs. The Fayden singing and dancing around what looked every bit like a modern Chip-and-Joanna-style open layout. A kitchen off to one side, a living room with comfy couch, and, on the far side of the room on a lifted platform, a large bed practically overflowing with pillows. The only thing missing was a 60-inch flatscreen. Well, that and shiplap.
I did
n’t get to go into the living space, however. I was taken around the side to an iron-bound door that required six separate keys to unlock.
“Isn’t that a bit much?” I asked. “Can’t you just use magic?”
“Sure,” he said, “but I make a point not to just use magic. I want a reason to use magic, and the reason is only rarely because I’m lazy.”
The iron door led into a long dark hallway that was actually a little disconcerting to walk through. It had no lights there, which was at odds to the rest of The Fayden, uh, home. Living space? Area? Whatever. Everywhere else I’d been with The Faydens had been well-lit, homey, and inviting. This hallway was none of that. I did not like it.
There were a few doors in the dark hallway, none of which had anything to indicate what was on the other side. The Fayden strolled right on by, like the doors were unimportant. On the other end of the hallway was a small room with a single glowstone in the ceiling and a door in each of the three walls.
“Now,” The Fayden said, stopping dead center in the room and turning to face me, “I am going to ask you to do something, and I have the feeling you might not want to do what it is I am going to ask. And it is okay to say no. This is not the sort of relationship where I, the master, issue orders that you, the apprentice, must follow at any cost. That is not how magicians learn. That is how people are transformed in the mindless nitwits who have chosen the moniker ‘Mancer.’ They are close-minded idiots. If you do not want to do what I am about to ask, I will think of another way to do the, uh, research I need to do.”
“What exactly are you going to ask me to do?” I asked.
“You have two spells I have never seen before. One I can largely guess as to what it does. I do not know what an outsider is, exactly, but summoning is summoning. The outsider being compelled to be your guardian is a neat trick as well, but not really unknown or bizarre. Your drain spell, on the other hand, that is more, well, new and exciting. Maybe exciting. It is actually a little worrying because I suspect it has some rather deleterious effects. And while I would normally never tell a pupil, apprentice, or what-have-you to get rid of a spell, I fear this might be a first time for that.”
