The Human Familiar (Familiar and the Mage Book 1)

by Honor Raconteur

  “Renata Rocci and Bannen Hach?” he asked in a tone that already knew the answer. “I’m Taggart. I’ll be your Examiner and fighting partner today. Here are the rules: do not maim or kill either me or my familiar. Try not to destroy the testing ring, it’s had too much help in that regard.”

  I snorted a laugh. That was true enough.

  He gave me a brief grin. Had a dry sense of humor tucked in there somewhere, eh? “You have three chances to take me down. Either incapacitating me or preventing me from attacking you is considered your win. Do you understand the rules?”

  “I do,” Rena and I both said in unison.

  “Good. We will begin in a moment. I need to make sure your judges are ready.” He inclined his head toward three wizened old men that sat on the benches.

  As he walked away, I leaned my head in close to Rena’s. “So, what’s the plan?”

  “I hadn’t been sure before, but now I have an idea.” She tapped a finger thoughtfully against her lips. “He’s got a grimoire hanging off his belt.”

  Yes, so he did. I cottoned onto the plan. “You think destroying that will be your win?”

  “Yup.” She jerked her head to indicate both mage and familiar. “You think you can keep them occupied long enough for me to do it?”

  I didn’t know most of her spells, and depending on what she was trying to do, some of them took longer than others. “How long do you need?”

  “Two minutes?” she hazarded.

  I could probably do two minutes. “Let’s try it.”

  For the first time she looked a little uncertain. “How’s your control doing?”

  “I won’t know until he actually starts flinging spells,” I answered honestly, a grim certainty crawling up my spine. “I don’t think I’m going to react too badly, because he obviously has no intention to really hurt you, but if I start going off the rails…”

  “I’ll stop you,” she promised softly, taking a moment to lace our fingers together. I needed the contact. I still had moments of panic when I couldn’t reach out to touch her. Perhaps she did too. Rena dropped her eyes to the grimoire and stared at it hard for a moment. “Yeah. Two minutes, max.”

  I could handle overprotective instincts for two minutes. While she stared at the grimoire, I stared at the familiar. That thing waddled something terrible but I had a feeling that it behaved like a roly-poly. It would tuck itself into a ball and roll all over the place. If it went for me or Rena in that form, it was going to be a terrible distraction. And dangerous, of course, as it would knock us off our feet. I would have to deal with both at the same time. I grazed light fingertips over the throwing daggers strapped to my belt and thought strategy.

  Taggart came back and stood in the center, not ten feet from us. “We are ready. Begin.”

  The word barely left his mouth before he snapped the grimoire open and started shooting off spells. I could feel the bond flare, the white-hot urge of mineprotectmine swamp me, and I fought it back. Of all times, I absolutely could not lose my control here. It felt like swallowing a hot poker, but I focused, slamming the urge to kill this man aside. Instead, I stepped into the line of fire and deflected both flames, throwing them off to the side. I threw a dagger at his head, forcing him to dodge and buying myself three seconds.

  The familiar was indeed rolling itself into a ball and heading for me. If that thing hit my feet, I was going to be in a world of trouble. Snapping out three daggers into my hand, I threw them with such excellent precision that I impressed myself. It caught the rolly familiar short, each dagger caging it on a different side so that it couldn’t move. I heard a high pitched whine from it but couldn’t pay it any more attention.

  His master demanded mine.

  Seeing that his familiar was trapped, he went harder at me, trying to break through my guard to get at Rena. Each spell thrown was a notch higher in level than the previous one. The bond writhed, demanded I get my mage away from him, and I found it harder and harder to ignore that impulse. Seriously, new bonds were so sarding demanding, it was ridiculous. Even our two week old bond had behaved better about dangerous situations than this!

  Determined to not accidentally kill either mage instructor or his familiar, I kept my breathing evenly paced, focused on the spells, and keeping Rena at my back. I dodged, weaved, drew his attention away from Rena by running in short sprints toward him and then away, not actively engaging him while still keeping the grimoire within line of sight and his spells away from my mage.

  He knew what I was doing. There was a smile of knowing appreciation on his face. But still, short of killing me or throwing out some serious firepower, he couldn’t break the pace I set. I weaved in and around him, feeling the heat of the fire spells he threw, the ache in my shoulders from some of the harder spells that jarred the swords in my hands.

  Rena had been saying her incantation in a steady hum of noise behind me until the last two words, when her voice rose in determination: “—ven vici!”

  Between one breath and the next, the grimoire went from an intact book in the mage’s hands to dust. Startled, he let out an oath and stopped short, staring at it in amazement. Rena and I both stopped dead at the same moment, staring at him anxiously, not sure what he was going to do. The bond shivered in reaction, pulling me in conflicting ways, hard enough that I felt a fine tremor dance along my skin.

  Taggart threw back his head and laughed.

  I blinked. He wasn’t mad? I imagined grimoires took quite a while to make. Then I blinked again, feeling the rage of the bond stutter, relaxing as he stopped flinging spells at my mage. It didn’t stop, just fell to more of a simmer. “Sir?”

  “Yield!” he called, as much to us as to the judges. “Ha! Never had someone succeed at this before.” Taggart regarded Rena with acute interest. “Many a young mage thinks to attack the grimoire first, as it’s the easiest and most reliable way of stopping a fight with another mage. Your thought was not wrong. Most don’t succeed, however.”

  Rena stepped up so that our arms touched although she didn’t reach for my hand like normal. Perhaps because of all of the hearings we’d been through the past few days, she kept our contact casual, avoiding any look of intimacy in front of the sharp eyes of the judges. Seeing that I wasn’t quite following, Rena explained to me, “Most grimoires have an intense protective shield around it. Because they’re valuable, but just paper and ink after all, mages do their best to protect them.”

  “Precisely so,” Taggart agreed. “So most young mages aren’t able to destroy a grimoire on the fly, in the heat of battle, without doing some elaborate preparations. You, I believe, are the first to try the tactic and succeed.”

  Rena gave him a small smile, a trifle smug. “Barriers don’t mean much to me.”

  “Apparently not.” Taggart evaluated both of us with an enigmatic expression on his face that I had no idea how to read. “I understand now why you maintain that this young man must be your familiar. With the length of your incantations, and the lack of a grimoire, it would take a human familiar to keep up with you.”

  “Yes, sir,” Rena agreed, brightening visibly.

  Oh? He was the first mage outside of Tarkington that grasped why we maintained this bond. I knew I liked this man for a reason. Hearing his praise, I relaxed even further, enough to put my own weapons back in their sheaths. When I did so, the bond relaxed back into something approaching its usual background hum of contentment. Not quite there, but close enough. I breathed a careful sigh of relief as thinking and moving while under that kind of magical pressure was Not Fun.

  “You,” Taggart jabbed a finger at me. “Kindly release my familiar.”

  Ah. He probably would like to be free. I went and retrieved my daggers, asking him as I removed them, “I didn’t scratch you, did I?”

  I got glared at through beady eyes before he stalked off back to his mage. Yeah, he was fine.

  Taggart rubbed at his missing earlobe, a tic that I judged to be an old habit. “It could not have bee
n easy facing me with your bond only a few days old. Are you both alright?”

  Rena took that as permission to link arms with me, leaning blatantly into my side. “Bond is a little unhappy but we’re fine,” she assured him.

  Taggart gave me a look that said he didn’t quite believe her. I gave him my best smile. “My urge to gut you and string you up by your toes has more or less passed,” I assured him brightly.

  He let out one of those snorts that sounded more like a chuckle. “That’s an honest answer. Bannen, you are an exceptional fighter. From where do you hail?”

  “Z’gher.”

  “Hooo.” Taggart gave a nod of complete understanding. “I thought I recognized that style. I fought alongside your countrymen once, two decades ago. Fierce fighters. This bout with you made me feel like I was in my twenties again. Renata Rocci.”

  Rena straightened only slightly, still not letting go of me, looking up at him with fixed interest. “Yes, Magus?”

  “Your magic is very, very different than anything I’ve ever seen or heard tale of.” Leaning in, he lowered his voice and confided, “There’s at least one person on the Council that wants me to fail you because of that. However, you are the only apprentice this year that has beaten me in the first round. No one can contest your ability. I, for one, am convinced that Bannen is indeed your familiar and should be so.”

  One of the judges cleared his throat loudly. “That is not for you to decide, Taggart.”

  Taggart gave the elderly mage a very unimpressed look. “I am entitled to a personal opinion and I’ll share it if I want to, Mohr. Regardless, I declare them the victors of this fight. Judges, how do you rule?”

  I could tell Mohr really, really didn’t want to agree in our favor. He had the most sour, puckered look to his face, as if he were chewing on a rotten lime. As grudgingly as a goat giving up a new boot to chew, he stated, “Ms. Rocci has passed the Test.” He stopped, apparently unable to force himself to say anything more.

  These people were so stuck on traditions that I literally wanted to put a boot up their backside. So what if Rena’s magic wasn’t ‘standard’? It was because it wasn’t standard that a whole region wasn’t succumbing to Toh’sellor’s influence right now!

  After a very awkward, uncomfortable pause, the judge sitting to Mohr’s left gave him an exasperated look and stood. With a clearing of the throat, he continued, “Renata Rocci, we declare you a Mage of the First Circle, with all of the rights, privileges, and responsibilities that entails. We recognize Bannen Hach as your familiar—”

  Mohr slammed up to his feet and growled, “Now wait just one minute! That’s a separate issue entirely, Harris!”

  Harris glared right back at him. “Mohr, I can literally see their familiar bond from here. What grounds are you using to contest this?”

  Mohr’s mouth moved soundlessly for a few minutes before he blurted out, “You’re suggesting that we leave a young woman and a young man magically bonded to each other. It will be a violation of her mage oaths!”

  …come again? I scratched my head, feeling like I was missing something. The bond hissed, unhappy at being questioned. Rena felt it too as her hands tightened around me, hard enough to threaten bruises.

  The judges were all looking steadfastly away from each other, or anyone in the room for that matter, the walls and floors becoming suddenly fascinating. There might have been a few red cheeks over there too. Taggart just gave a put upon sigh, as if he couldn’t believe he had to deal with such nonsense.

  I admit it took me a second longer than it should have to put the pieces together. Oh. Oh, they think we’ll…I darted a look at Rena.

  She gave me a look in return. “I blame you for this, Bannen.”

  I pointed a finger at myself. “Me? Why me?”

  “You’re too handsome. If you were as ugly as mud fencepost, this wouldn’t be in question.”

  Absurdly, I liked this backhanded compliment. I might have preened a little.

  Laughing, Rena asked, “That totally went to your head, didn’t it?”

  “It did,” I admitted without an ounce of shame. “Maguses, let me ask something. As I understand it, all familiars are animals, correct? Except for me.”

  “That is correct,” Mohr confirmed, sounding like he was chewing on boulders. “What is your point, young man?”

  “In other words,” Rena picked up the argument smoothly, “the rule is: no bestiality. Correct?”

  Mohr glared at her, eyes hot enough to melt steel.

  Taggart snorted, shaking his head. “I think we can ignore the rule in their case, yes? As they are the exceptions. Unless you want to make the ludicrous argument that because he’s bound as a familiar he must have the intellect of a beast? Of course that invalidates your other argument of a human being bound as a familiar. Which argument would you prefer to pursue?”

  Succinctly put. I did like this man.

  I think the other judge, Harris, was incredibly embarrassed by this turn in the conversation. He cleared his throat again, gave his companion a look that promised something dire later, and continued as if he hadn’t been interrupted: “We recognize Bannen Hach as your familiar, also granting him all of the rights, privileges, and responsibilities that his position incurs. If you will follow Taggart out of the ring, he will give you the robes and emblems of your new ranking.” Dropping the formality a notch, he said more candidly, “If the two of you have a minute after that, I’d like to talk to you about the summoning process. This is a very unique situation and I want it recorded properly.”

  Yes! Finally I was official. I shared a grin with Rena and fought the urge to grab her up and squeeze the stuffing out of her.

  Because Rena had better manners, she responded politely, “Of course, sir. I actually recorded everything down immediately after it happened. I brought it with me, hoping that I could speak to someone about it. The whole thing was somewhat odd.”

  Harris looked even more interested. “I would very much like to look at it.”

  “Robes and emblems first,” Taggart interjected, extended an arm toward the door. “Then the three of you can talk to your hearts content.”

  Two days later, the research magus arrived with such little fanfare that no one even noticed him walking through the main doors. He came straight up to me, as if guided by a seeking spell. I didn’t even take notice of him until I felt Bannen swiftly move, blocking his path.

  “Who might you be?” Bannen challenged, feet planted, tone not challenging but body posture saying he was ready to fight given reason to. I could feel the bond surge with a heightened sense of protectiveness.

  The mage flipped open a coat flap, pulled out a grimoire that had the Council’s embossed seal on it, and pushed the floppy hat on his head up with a finger to reveal more of his face. It was quite the face. His nose was prominent, chin narrow, hair shaggy as if he hadn’t cut it in at least six months, and he was dressed like a well-to-do farmer. “You’re the familiar.”

  It was not a question, but Bannen responded like it was. “I am. Who are you?”

  Ignoring Bannen, the mage tried to side-step him. “What strange magic you have, girl—” he stopped abruptly, checked by Bannen’s hand on his chest. First a look of annoyance passed over his face, then he rocked back on his heels with a huff. “There a reason why you’re so overprotective of your mage, boy?”

  “Assassins make me twitchy,” Bannen responded mock-sweetly. “Now, who are you again?”

  “Assassins? I just showed you a Council seal, didn’t I?”

  “Pretty sure the Council sent the last one, so not real convinced you’re harmless.” Bannen stayed loose and limber, ready to take the man down in a moment. I had seen that body position before. He did not trust this man. I wasn’t sure I did either.

  Giving a put upon sigh, the man finally introduced himself. “Magus Trammel.”

  I went stock still. This was the famous mage that only researched things? He did not fit the rumors at all. I wou
ld have passed this man on the street without a second glance, he was that nondescript looking. Standing, I maneuvered to stand on Bannen’s left side. “Magus Trammel. I’m Renata Rocci.”

  “I thought as much.” Impatiently, he put a finger to Bannen’s chest and tried to move him. It failed. Bannen’s fairly immovable when he gets stubborn. The bond kept vibrating, insistently, which likely wasn’t helping matters. “Girl, talk to your familiar. I can’t examine you like this.”

  Mark Trammel was not someone to be casually invited over to visit. Or even a cup of tea. The man was odd and I felt sure that having to face him was due to some sort of cosmic desire to punish me. Not that I knew what I’d done to deserve it, but it had to be a punishment. I knew this, as my only instinct when near him was to run for the hills. I had no desire to order Bannen to back down.

  “Forgive me, sir, but I don’t understand why you want to study me to begin with? Unless it’s because I summoned a human familiar?”

  “That’s interesting enough in its own right,” Trammel answered, impatience growing, “but I largely came because of the report I heard of what you’d done to that shard of Toh’sellor.”

  My attention on him sharpened. “You know what that was?”

  “Of course I do, girl, don’t be stupid. You think I earned my reputation by listening to tavern gossip and kowtowing to those idiots on the Council? I saw for myself what the shard was like when it was first contained. And I told those fools that sending a bunch of apprentices in to deal with it as an ‘assignment’ was foolhardy in the extreme. I was right, too, except for you.” He leaned in slightly despite Bannen’s hand, eyes examining me in an uncomfortable scrutiny. “You I did not account for. I’m going to spend the next few days studying you until I have answers. How did you disappear Toh’sellor?”

  Would it hurt anything to give this man answers? He, at least, wasn’t trying to deny what I was. If he knew about Toh’sellor despite everyone down here treating it like legend, then he might know more that would prove helpful to me. Besides, I had the feeling that the fastest way to get him to go away was to feed him the answers he was seeking. “It’s how my magic works, sir. I deconstruct things.”