by John Corwin
Esma continued on as if nothing had happened. She took a left into a corridor and stopped outside an office door which she rapped on once with her knuckles and then opened. A man with his shirt hanging open was enthusiastically kissing a woman perched on the edge of his desk. My face burned with embarrassment.
The woman broke her lips free and shrieked when she saw us. The man groaned. "Don't you know how to knock?"
"I did knock." Esma raised an eyebrow at the woman. "Don't you have something better to do than sit around gawking?"
The woman hastily buttoned her lab coat, face red, eyes averted to the floor. She rushed out of the door without a word.
"Call me," the man called after her. He set his arms akimbo. "So, my dear—ah, Esma. How may I help you?" Sarcasm dripped from his words, and though he looked younger than the professor, he spoke to her without a hint of respect. "Why have you brought this boy with you?"
"This is not just some boy," Esma said coldly. "This is Conrad Edison."
The man's eyes locked onto me and he smirked. Beneath his unbuttoned shirt, he was lean and muscular. His pale white skin contrasted with the black hair he wore in spikes to the sides, giving him a rather devilish look. He slowly buttoned his shirt, studying me all the while. "I've heard tales of you, boy." He brushed at the wrinkles in his shirt and walked to the other side of the desk. "It seems you're rather unpopular at Arcane University."
"That would be an understatement." The heat from my face faded, my mortification replaced by curiosity. "Who are you?"
The man grinned and pressed a hand to his chest. "I am your savior. The man who will teach you that which the old phonies at Arcane U. would never allow."
"Your name," Esma said in a tight voice.
He rolled his eyes. "Yes, Esma, I will give him my name." He turned back to me. "My dear, Conrad Edison, I am your long lost, disowned, disavowed, and thoroughly despised bastard cousin." He rolled his hand and made a curt bow. "My name is Ansel Moore, son of Astra, sister to your dear sweet mother, Delectra."
Chapter 10
It took a moment for the shock to wear off before I could stutter a reply. "You're my cousin?"
"That's what I just said, isn't it?" Ansel sat on the front edge of the desk and looked down at Esma. "I do hope the boy is potty trained because I don't have time to waste if he doesn't live up to your expectations."
"I should think you'd be happy to have an apprentice." Esma straightened her shoulders but failed to look much taller. Even so, she managed to look down her nose at Ansel. "It seems spell coding and scripting has fallen out of favor with the current generation."
"Oh, you can thank the Overlord for that." Ansel spat the name like a curse. "He banned the practice so no one could use it against him. It's taken years to reverse course." He stood. "A shame that some people don't stay dead."
Esma flinched as if he'd struck her, and anger swept across her features. She took a breath and slipped back on the uncaring mask. "Please teach him, Ansel." There was pain in her voice.
Ansel's eyebrows shot up. "Very well." He folded his arms and looked me over. "Do what I say and put in the time I request, or I'll drop you faster than moldy bread, boy. Got it?"
I swallowed hard and wondered what Esma had gotten me into. "Yes, Ansel."
"Excellent!" He patted my head like a dog's. "In that case, cousin, you will stay a while, and sweet Esma will go." The amusement faded from Ansel's eyes as he looked at the professor. "Goodbye."
Esma's lips pressed tight, but she turned and left without another word. After she'd left, I studied the hardness in Ansel's eyes. "Why don't you like Esma?"
He blinked as if waking from a daydream and flashed an insincere grin at me. "You're not remotely ready to hear that story." Ansel rubbed his hands together. "Let's get started." He walked to a desk and held up a flat device with a screen. "What's this?"
I didn't know if it was a trick question, but I answered plainly. "An arcphone."
"What does it do?"
Max had explained it simply to me once, so I repeated what he'd said. "It's like a smartphone that uses magic."
"Precisely." Ansel flicked it on. "These days, most people use them for mundane tasks and games, but some gifted folk use them for spell scripting." He picked up a brass wand, its surface etched with golden runes, and unscrewed the base. A smooth cylinder slid out. "This is an aether battery." He opened a compartment on the side of the wand to reveal chips inside. "This is a magical processing unit capable of focusing scripted spells through the wand."
I peered closely at the arcnological marvel. "Does that make it more powerful?"
"Infinitely," he assured me. "How many spells can you fire off in quick succession?"
"I don't know that many." I tried to count them on my fingers. "Three or four, I think, but they're not powerful spells."
"Demonstrate." Ansel pointed to a blank wall.
I took a moment to compose myself and to decide which spells I could best cast. I looked around for a candle, but of course they didn't use them here. I pulled some parchment from my backpack and set it against the wall. Flicking my wand through the pattern, I cast Ignitus. The parchment caught fire. Without pause, I blew out the fire with Ventus, levitated the paper with Levator, and then threw it aside with Torsius. It took a total of more than thirty seconds to work through everything, but I felt proud that I didn't miscast a single spell.
Ansel clapped his hands slowly when I'd finished. "Impressive for a second year student, but watch this." He slid the aether battery back into the wand and closed it, then tapped away on his smartphone. Lines of strange code drifted across the screen and then he put away the phone. "Parchment, please."
I took another sheet and set it against the wall. Ansel flicked the wand, guiding it through the patterns so tightly, I barely had time to make them out. The spells shot from the wand in quick succession, fire, air, levitation, and the last spell ripped the smoking parchment in half—all done in under five seconds.
I stared at the wand and back at him. "How is that possible? You didn't say the magic words or anything."
"I am going to tell you something nobody at Arcane University will say." Ansel sat on the corner of his desk. "Language is form, and little more."
"Form?" I grasped at his meaning. "That's what Esma told me."
"It is a way of putting your will into the form of a word." He indicated the charred parchment. "They train you to think of lighting a fire with Ignitus, of making a breeze with Ventus, but the words themselves have no magic to them."
"Do you mean to say it's simple word association?"
Ansel waggled a hand. "Primarily, yes. It helps those with weaker wills maintain a visual of their goal." He pushed off the desk and flicked on an arctablet. A holographic whiteboard sprang into the air. Using his finger, he drew a stick figure of a person holding a wand. Inside the circular head, he wrote, WILLPOWER, and over the wand, FOCUS. Ansel inspected his work then tapped a finger on the stick figure's head. "Most of the magic happens here. If you don't possess the will, then you will never find the way."
"What about the wand patterns?" I asked.
"They represent runes," he said. "The only magical language is Cyrinthian and it is with that we can script and program spells. That is why patterns are necessary, but you hardly need to make them large."
"In other words, patterns are important." I traced the pattern for Ignitus on the whiteboard.
"The elemental rune of fire," Ansel said. "The only reason the Ignitus spell is so weak is because you were trained to believe it so."
"If all you truly need are runes and willpower to cast spells, then why can't everyone do it?" I asked.
Ansel tapped his head and his chest. "Willpower. Though most people believe they have strong wills, they have never been tested, never been put through a crucible that either forges them into iron, or shatters them."
I immediately saw a flaw in his logic. "But noms can't do magic."
"Because
they don't believe." Ansel's laughter sounded bitter and condescending. "Just the same as you not believing Ignitus could turn a rock into lava."
"In other words, if a nom believed in magic, they could cast spells."
"Yes, provided they had a strong enough will." Ansel turned off the whiteboard hologram. "Now that you know the truth, I'm going to give you a test. If you pass, I will continue to teach you. If you fail, we are done and you can go crying back to Esma."
My stomach knotted with stress and anger. If Ansel was right, he could help me expand my abilities, and perhaps give me the edge I needed to fight my parents when the time came. "What do you want me to do?"
He pointed to a shiny chest on the side of the room. "Burn a hole through the side."
Through that? It looked like metal. I bit back a protest because he might fail me on the spot. Just because he'd told me that Ignitus could melt a rock didn't mean I could just as easily believe it. And yet, this was it, my first and only chance. I had to do it. I flicked the wand through the pattern a couple of times to practice then squeezed my eyes shut and imagined the fire rune, imagined that it represented heat so intense, it could melt metal.
"Ready yet?" Ansel asked in a bored voice. "I have things to do."
My fist tightened around the wand. Resisting the urge to retort was difficult, but I managed. "Yes."
"Then do it!" he shouted. "Stop wasting time and do it!"
I stared at him, more amused than upset by his outburst because his handsome face grew mottled with red, making him look like an angry child.
Turning back to the chest, I envisioned the fire rune, flicked the wand through the pattern. In my mind, the rune turned from a dull shade of orange to white hot. I aetherated, drawing in as much magical energy as I could stand, and then focused my will on the chest. I used no words, only the imagery of a hole melting in the chest. I have to do this. If I don't, I'll never defeat my parents. Images of them reviving from death flashed through my mind, of Delectra holding a wicked knife to my throat, ready to sacrifice me like a lamb. That was what they'd do to the world if no one stood in their way. I would die and my friends with me. I would never be able to resurrect Cora. I would never again know the love of a mother. I would not be able to redeem Delectra.
My morbid imagination turned my resolve into steel. Nothing would stand between me and completing this test.
You are unstoppable, Della said. You are of House Moore.
A solid beam of white fire speared from my wand. The air shimmered and crackled with heat and my hand felt as though I'd held it near an open flame. The spell hit the chest with no discernable effect. I gritted my teeth and pushed harder, forcing everything from my mind but its destruction.
The side began to glow and the end of my wand began to smoke. My fingers felt as though they might blister from the heat. I heard a hoarse shout tear from my throat. The spell abruptly sparked, sputtered and died. My knees went weak as jelly and my limbs felt like lead. The wand dropped to the floor and I nearly fell with it. I caught the table with my arm and strained to hold myself up.
Ansel looked at the chest. The glow had already faded and there was no hole in the side. He stared at me, something bright and malicious dancing in his eyes.
I could barely find the strength to speak or move. Using the table as an anchor, I pushed up on my wobbly legs and stared at the chest. It should have melted! I felt so certain about it that I stumbled closer to inspect it. Only the faintest mark of black indicated that I'd even attacked it. Turning, I took a deep breath. My arms and legs trembled with fatigue, but I didn't want to collapse in front of this spiteful man. I carefully bent over and retrieved my wand.
"I'll be going," I said. "Don't worry, cousin, I won't trouble you again."
Ansel gripped my shoulders and laughed maniacally. "Going? Going?" He shook his head. "Esma was right about you, my dear beloved cousin. You have the makings of someone great."
"But I failed." My voice was barely above a whisper and something vile squirmed in my guts. "I didn't melt it."
"Oh, you're about to have the most horrific case of magic sickness you ever felt." Ansel giggled, sounding like a mentally unbalanced girl.
I'd had mild magic sickness before, but the nausea twisting my insides told me that Ansel was right. I heaved so hard I would have fallen if Ansel hadn't held me up. He lowered me to my knees and shoved a trashcan under my nose. I soon filled it with everything I'd eaten for the day, and continued sicking up until it seemed a week's worth of food had left my body.
Ansel paced back and forth in front of the chest, laughing and talking to himself like a madman. When I finished heaving, he sat down next to me. "It was a trick test, Conrad." He laughed again. "Oh, you tried so hard, and the amazing thing is, you actually put a mark on diamond fiber!"
"Diamond fiber?" I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand. "I thought diamond fiber was magic proof."
"It's indestructible, cousin." Ansel jabbed a finger at the faint mark. "Every spell I've ever thrown at it has done nothing." He crawled on his knees the few feet to the chest and stabbed a finger at the mark. "But look what you did! Just look at it!"
Impressive, my boy. Della sounded immensely pleased.
You're only happy because I'm strong. I was almost too tired to speak even if only in my head. If only you could be happy because I'm your son.
Ansel took a deep breath and calmed down. He stood, grimaced at the sight of the trash can, and then pulled me to my feet. "How did you pull your strength?" he asked. "Did you use an avatar?"
"An avatar?" My voice sounded drunken, and an ocean of nausea buffeted me from every side. "What do you mean?"
"Hold onto this." Ansel leaned me on the table and hooked my elbows on the edge. He rummaged through shelves and drawers and pulled out a glass container filled with pink orbs that looked like chewing gum. Ansel plucked one from inside and shoved it in my mouth. "Chew it."
Somehow, I found the strength. My saliva carried the sweet flavor across my tongue and warmth flushed down my chest when I swallowed. Moments later, I felt less nauseated, but still trembled with weakness.
"You'll be complete rubbish in class tomorrow." Ansel snorted and covered his mouth.
"What's an avatar?" I asked.
"Everyone has a different way of strengthening their will," he said. "For some, it is a lover." His forehead wrinkled. "I think it's safe to say you don't have one of those yet."
I swallowed more of the gum medicine. "An avatar is a person?"
"Or the personification of an idea." He frowned. "I hope it's not either of your parents."
Even though my face was a bit numb, I felt a grimace stretch my lips. "No." Cora, Ambria, Max—they were my avatars, but I didn't want to tell him that. It felt too personal to share, especially with this unpleasant man.
Ansel waited on an answer, but frowned when I remained silent. "Unless you're an idiot, you know what your avatar is." He slashed a hand through the air. "Keep it to yourself if you want." Ansel looked at the time on his arcphone. "I have a date with a lovely woman. If you'll kindly let yourself out and lock the door when you recover, I will be grateful."
"When do we start again?" I asked.
"Tomorrow after school." Ansel opened the door. "You'll need an arcphone."
"I have one," I said.
He nodded. "Excellent. How is your Cyrinthian?"
"I know very little," I admitted.
"Do you know the difference between runes and letters?"
My answer remained the same. "Very little."
"I suggest you familiarize yourself." He held out his hand. "Let me see your phone." I took it from my back pocket and handed it to him. He pursed his lips and turned it in his hand. "Well, at least it's an Orange and not a MagicSoft. You realize they frown upon these devices at the university?"
"Yes."
"How did you afford this?"
"It belonged to someone who tried to kill me," I said matter-of-factly. "I killed him with
a shovel."
Ansel's lips spread into a pleased grin. "You and I are going to get along grandly." He bumped his phone against mine. The devices beeped and then he handed mine back to me. "You now have the fully unauthorized Cyrinthian Codex. I suggest you not use the Dark Runes, or you might suffer unintended consequences."
"Dark Runes?" Apprehension chilled me.
"Oh yes—demon language." Ansel opened the door. "Wish me luck on my date, cousin. I've been after this birdy for a long while." He left without waiting for a response.
I opened the codex on my phone and scrolled through the contents. It was divided into three main sections: Cyrinthian Language, Cyrinthian Runes, and Dark Runes. I also found another book in the library entitled, Demonomicon, The Demon Codex of Emily Glass. A quick look through it revealed patterns and language that defied my ability to pronounce them.
Instinct warned me away from anything to do with demons. Victus had used the infernal creatures to warp Delectra, and he'd used them on me to ensure his resurrection. I'd also seen a demon devour a lycan named Brickle.
If I had any choice, I'd never use demon magic.
Chapter 11
I made it back to the university in time for a late supper in the dining hall. With my nausea gone, I was ravenous and ate two servings. Max and Ambria weren't there, which was no surprise since they'd probably eaten over an hour ago.
On my way out the door I heard a single word that sent chills down my spine.
"Frigidiosa!" came the shout from my left.
My wand was already in my hands, torso spinning to meet the attack. Nausea clawed up my throat when I tried to cast a shield spell and a wave of sleet splashed across my face, my body, freezing solid where it hit. Within seconds, I couldn't move. Only a small hole in the ice beneath my nose allowed me to breathe.
