“Your laws don’t apply to accidental familiar summonings of another person, so it isn’t possible to give you a simple yes or no.”
Auman really, really didn’t like that answer. His mouth went into a pissy line and then he ticked something off before going to the next question. “Miss Rocci, why did you not immediately break the bond when you realized it had formed?”
It apparently was my turn to blink at him stupidly. Did he seriously just ask that question? “Sir, when we reported the situation to the Council, they sent a message back to not do anything until they could give us a verdict on the matter.”
He met my eyes and I couldn’t read him, not at all, as if he were some golem or puppet that didn’t have an opinion of his own. “You are in violation of three laws by being bound to him and yet you choose not to break it?”
“I was specifically ordered by the Council to not do anything,” I repeated slowly, trying to enunciate so that he couldn’t possibly misunderstand me. “I’m obeying those orders. When they have a verdict, then we will discuss what to do.”
“I’m sorry, what is this?” Bannen broke in, voice rising in volume. “This isn’t an investigation, it’s an interrogation. You’ve already made up your mind what the facts are, haven’t you?”
Auman didn’t even try to pretend otherwise. “Master Bannen, you are out of line—”
“I’m her familiar,” Bannen snarled at him, rising sharply to his feet. “Protecting her from you? Totally within my job responsibilities.”
“You are not her familiar—” Auman denied, still in that ruthlessly emotionless way.
“Anyone with eyes that have even a hint of magic in them can see our bond, so you can sard off, because we all know I am. You wouldn’t be sitting here with your questions and accusations otherwise. Speaking of which, you’re done now, as we’re not answering anything more from you.”
And we’d now hit the level of ‘overprotective.’ Marvelous. I’d wondered what it would take to push Bannen over the edge. Apparently the combination of being injured and facing a snotty stooge from the Council did it.
“Investigator Auman,” I cut in before the man could get a word in edgewise, “I suggest you either stop here and make your report or try again on a later day.”
“You cannot dodge or delay an investigation from the Council,” Auman finally snapped at me, losing that insufferable cool.
“My familiar is already agitated, as I’ve been in danger twice in the past five days,” I responded, trying not to lose my temper as well, as three people yelling doesn’t accomplish anything. “No matter how you feel about a human being a familiar, the bond between us is very real and it’s pushing Bannen into a highly defensive standpoint. If you want a more sensible, calmer conversation out of us, then come back when he’s no longer injured and ready to rip people’s heads off.”
“I think that a splendid idea,” Venn announced suddenly behind me. His hands landed on my shoulders in a show of solidarity. “Investigator Auman, know that I will be making my own report on your very interesting investigative techniques.”
Auman did not look comfortable hearing that, nor should he. Venn had a network of people throughout the city and no one sane messed with this man. “I am here on orders from the Council.”
“They are also obeying orders from the Council,” Venn responded with that look on his face that made me think of pirates and skulls on black flags. “Orders are not like banquet food, you know. You can’t pick and choose which ones to put on your plate.”
I loved my guildmaster.
“You’re especially toeing a line if you’re messing with a newly bonded pair,” Venn added in a tone that sent a shiver along my skin. “Laws aside, deliberately antagonizing a familiar that is hurt and already defensive of his mage is not normally wise. Tends to shorten people’s lifespans, or so I’ve seen.”
Auman snapped to his feet, indignant. “Are you threatening me?”
“I’m not her familiar,” Venn responded with saccharine sweetness.
Bannen gave Auman a small smile, nothing more than a lift at the corners of his mouth, but somehow, despite having his arm still in a sling, he radiated danger so profoundly that even I felt scared of him for a moment. He didn’t do anything, didn’t say anything, just stood there while the menace poured off of him in waves.
“I believe you have enough information for your report,” Venn informed Auman in a clear dismissal.
Jaw clenched, Auman snapped up his notebook and stormed out.
I watched him go, the bottom dropping out of my stomach. “We could have handled that better.”
Bannen snorted. “That man already had his opinion before he ever walked through the doors. Nothing we said was going to make a difference.”
“True enough,” Venn agreed. “Although antagonizing him probably won’t help, but don’t worry about that. I’ll handle it.”
I trusted that he would do so. Right now, I had a very bristly familiar to somehow settle. I tried with something that I knew would work. “Rice balls?”
It took him several seconds before he blew out a breath. “Rice balls sound great, but you’ll have to do most of the work.”
I smiled up at him. “That’s fine.”
We spent the next day nervously waiting for the other shoe to drop because no one expected that there wouldn’t be any retaliation whatsoever. But Venn really had taken care of it, using his network of connections, or the Council’s response was as slow as always. When nothing earthshattering happened, Rena informed me she had another job lined up. Something about ferret monkeys, not that I had any idea of what a ferret monkey was, but they sounded troublesome. For my sake, we waited two more days until my arm healed, and thank all magic for healing spells. Otherwise it would have taken much longer than just three days. But after the third day, I felt right as rain, and declared myself fit for duty again.
The next morning, she notified her employer she’d come out and deal with it. I sat at the main table in the guildhall, near the door, waiting on her. She’d forgotten something and darted back to her room to fetch it.
Tarkington passed by, only to backtrack a little. “Bannen, you remember that job that I mentioned to you? The one that all of you trained for in that sparring session?”
It took me a second, as that was almost a week ago now. “Yes?”
“Turns out the situation is growing more urgent. We thought we had it contained enough to pull together two parties of mages to deal with it, but we might have to strike earlier than expected. Are you and Rena set to go out today?”
“Nest of ferret monkeys to clear out,” I confirmed.
Grimacing, Tarkington gave a warding gesture with his fingers, middle fingers touching his palm, hand pushing out from his chest. “I hate those things. Alright, that won’t take more than a few hours. When you’re done, meet me back here. I’ll explain the plan, introduce you to our party, and all of that. We’re likely going to leave this afternoon and stay near the job site tonight, set to work tomorrow.”
“It’s that far out?”
“Hmm, yes and no. Because we’re bringing so many people it would strain a portal, so we’re going by train most of the distance. It’ll take roughly four hours to get there, but none of us want to tackle this in the dark, so we’ll wait for morning to start.”
It wasn’t a bad plan. I couldn’t imagine that working magic in the dark was easy to do. “So what time do we absolutely have to be back here?”
“Noon, I would say. Grab something for lunch on the way in; you won’t have time to go back out again, I don’t think.”
“Roger.”
He braced his hands on the table and leaned in, dropping his voice a notch. “How is she doing?”
“Well, I think. She hasn’t once had to use her medication since her collapse.” At least not that I’d seen.
Tarkington’s eyebrows flew up to his hairline. “That’s unusual. I’ve never seen her last a week without needing it
. How’s her stamina?”
“First three days, she had to pause and rest sometimes.” I thought about it for a moment. “Last few days, though, she hasn’t needed to.”
“Rena has been showing signs of improvement.” Tarkington stared at me hard. “In fact, she mentioned to me last night that her hair is no longer falling out in clumps.”
“I’m not one to question when things go well, but I do have to wonder why. Isn’t this the first time you’ve seen any sign of improvement? Why do you think it’s happening now? Medicine finally working?”
“The medicine only relaxes her lungs enough so that she can breathe. The doctors have no idea what’s wrong with her. She’s been growing progressively weaker with every year, right up till your appearance. Well. We shouldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth. As long as she’s feeling better, I won’t question the why.” Satisfied, he continued back to his lab/work area/whatever he called that space. Rena passed him on the way and he stopped and said something briefly to her before continuing on.
“Master said you’d fill me in?” she asked, catching up with me.
I repeated what I had been told about the job as we walked through the streets, heading for the trolley cart station that wasn’t too far from here. Rena had told me vaguely where our next job was, outside the city limits, so I knew that with the time constraint we were under, we’d need to use the transport system. I ended with, “What’s this situation he’s talking about? I never got told the full details.”
“Ah?” she cocked her head. “I suppose we never did get around to that. Alright, so, about four years ago we started experiencing strange pockets of chaotic magic.”
I went abruptly still. “Chaotic magic. How chaotic?”
“Not something we’ve seen before,” she stated, expression pensive. “And believe me, there’s been a lot of research on it since it first occurred. It seems to have the most dangerous effect on fauna and animals. It makes them grow to an almost monstrous size, and they lose all reasoning. It can take farmland and make it a carnivorous jungle.”
Mentally, I started swearing. “Like the Toh’sellor?”
She smiled as if I had just referenced some kind of fairy tale. “On a much, much smaller scale. Toh’sellor destroyed half a continent, if the story is to be believed. We’re dealing with about twenty acres.”
I looked at her expression and felt astounded. “You don’t believe in Toh’sellor?”
It was her turn to give me an odd look. “Isn’t that just a fairy tale? A legend? I heard it as a kid growing up, but—”
Shaking my head, I cut her off. “It’s real.”
Rena stopped and stared at me hard. “I don’t know you well enough to tell when you’re pulling my leg or not.”
“Not pulling your leg,” I promised, putting a hand over my heart. “Maybe because you’re so removed from it down here, you don’t realize that it’s real. They’ve kept Toh’sellor contained in the northern continent for three generations now. But I don’t mean completely contained, just mostly. His influence is still strong enough that we see echoes of it.”
“Echoes?” she parroted blankly.
I had a sour, burning taste in the back of my mouth. “Like twenty acres of fauna and animals that become monsters overnight.”
Jaw dropping, she honestly looked like she was waiting of the punch line of a joke. When I didn’t give it to her, she croaked, “Are you serious?”
“Perfectly serious. Wish I was joking, trust me, ’cause the thought of us seeing echoes of Toh’sellor down here? Way down here, a continent and a half away? Not happy about that at all, Rena. It means Toh’sellor is not as confined up there as I’d been told and it’s found some way to spread its influence outside of the barrier.” The devil’s advocate raised its head and pointed a few variables out, which I slowly said aloud. “Of course, I’m assuming a lot off a brief description that you’ve given me. It could be this is something totally different, some madman’s spell gone awry or something.”
Rena relaxed and I could almost see her dismiss the idea outright. “That’s far more likely. Toh’sellor reaching all the way down here is highly against the odds. Still, I find this interesting. It’s real? The whole tale?”
“I’m not sure what story you have floating around down here, but the monster itself is real, yeah.” Scratching at the back of my head, I offered, “Let’s swap stories on the train ride this evening, see how your country’s version compares with mine.”
Since we’d be stuck on a train for hours with nothing else to do, Rena agreed readily, “Let’s. For now, I have to fill you in on what this job entails.”
“Alright.” I tried very hard to focus on what she told me, I truly did, but a part of my mind lingered on this possibility of Toh’sellor escaping this far south, onto a different continent entirely. Truly, that was fodder for nightmares, right there, and I didn’t really need any help in that department. A most uneasy feeling churned in my gut and I prayed it was just that, an uneasy feeling. I did not need my overactive imagination being right in this case. I in no way, shape, or form wanted to be right about Toh’sellor being down here.
The trolley car came, we loaded on, and while we rode Rena launched into this explanation of what ferret monkeys were. Despite the name, they apparently weren’t either a ferret or a monkey, but some kind of rat-like pest that resembled both in a way. Most of what she told me wasn’t helpful, mostly scientific, and parts of it went straight over my head. What I did get out of it was this: they normally carried plague and diseases, the only effective way to make sure they didn’t infect a city was utter destruction (like fire), and they were beastly quick. “So, in other words, I’m there to protect you from getting bitten while you work your magic?”
“Literally, that’s the case,” she answered forthrightly. The wind was such that it threw some of her hair into her face. Rena raked it back, holding it to her shoulder to keep it from flying into her mouth again. “The reason why they’re ‘monkeys’ is because their nests are always high up. They like to stay high, too, but they’ll come down and attack if there’s something in their territory. We have three warehouses of grain that they’ve infested that we need to clear out. I’m choosing to do this in daylight because they’re nocturnal and hopefully I can get most of the nests before they sense the danger.”
Not exactly sporting, but I never felt like playing fair where rodents were involved. “How long do you expect this to take?”
She waggled a hand back and forth in the air like a see-saw. “Last time it took about an hour. That was four warehouses. So a little less than that, I would assume. This job won’t be like the last; you’ll be moving in and around me, as they will no doubt attack at some point. I’m not easily distracted, as you know, you can do anything you want around me and it will be fine. Just obey our two rules.”
Well, yeah, of course. “No worries, I remember: don’t move you and don’t get in your line of sight. Now that we’re talking about it, though, I have to ask: what happens if I absolutely need to move you but you’re mid-incantation?”
“If I’m disrupted, things go awry, mostly because leaving a half-fulfilled incantation dangling encourages the worst possible thing to happen.” Rena’s mouth twisted, the expression extremely ironic. “And by that I mean buildings blow up. Things catch on fire. Holes appear in bedrock. Avoid distracting me, please.”
My eyes went a little wide at this tally. “Ah, Rena, I don’t know you well enough to figure out when you’re teasing, either…?” I trailed off, hoping that she exaggerated.
She just stared me down.
“Wow, not joking, yeah, um, I think I’ll avoid distracting you.” Remembering the whole incident at the dump and our sparring session several days ago, I felt my eyes cross with a mental image of just how bad that could have gone. “You really, really should have mentioned that earlier. Why didn’t you mention that earlier? You know, before I jerked you off your feet and interrupted you back at the dump. Or
before we played with your friends, for that matter.”
“Ah.” She snapped her fingers in realization. “You’re right, that could have been bad. I should have.”
Seriously? I felt flabbergasted and bemused, and if there had been a hard surface handy somewhere, I would’ve banged my head against it. I now completely, totally understand why mages needed a familiar. They were so wrapped up in their magical theories and workflows that they didn’t connect to the bigger picture.
But this also made me wonder, would an animal familiar understand enough to be able to do this job? To be the true partner she needed? Would something without human intelligence understand when they could and could not interrupt her? When she was incanting a spell, and they had to let her finish? I’ve had many a smart dog or horse in my life, I know they can understand plenty, but to THAT degree?
I looked at Rena out of the corner of my eye. Everyone was still so certain that her summoning a human being was a mistake but I was growing increasingly certain that wasn’t the case. I think her magic knew exactly what its wielder needed. It was the traditions of this society that didn’t.
Deciding to probe a little, I asked, “So…I know that you said your magic is different from most people’s, but there’s a name or classification for it, right? What kind of magician are you?”
“There isn’t a magic type like mine,” she denied. I would have thought her exaggerating but her eyes were sad. “Many people believe that my magic is…deficient.”
At moments, I lose all faith in humanity. Hearing that sentence out of her mouth made me question that faith all over again. “You can summon a person from thousands of miles away, destroy things into a non-existent state, and your magic is deficient? Which bunch of fopdoodles came up with that idea?”
Rena gave me the sweetest smile, her whole being lighting up. “I like you.”
Snorting, I let that one pass. “Seriously, though, because you have a type of magic they don’t recognize, they treat you like an aberration?”
The Human Familiar (Familiar and the Mage Book 1) Page 13
