“Has she, now,” I said.
“For you to be this stable is remarkable,” said Vander. “Especially since you don’t have any alcohol or substance abuse problems.”
“You don’t know that,” I said. “I just killed a bunch of orcs. And I could be drunk or stoned out of my mind right now.”
Vander snorted. “You’re not. I just saw your aura, remember? Alcohol and drugs are rather obvious.”
“Maybe I am insane,” I said. “Just killed all those orcs, remember?”
Vander shook his head. “You’re not insane. You’re perfectly rational, mostly, except for the obvious post-traumatic stress. I’ve been involved in wars since before your race invented the internal combustion engine, and insane people cannot handle themselves in combat without getting killed.”
“Okay,” I said. “If humans usually go insane after time in an Eternity Crucible, why didn’t I go nuts?”
“Why do you think you stayed more or less sane?” said Vander.
“What, are you a therapist?” I said. “Are you just going to mirror my own questions back to me?”
“No, it was a serious question,” said Vander. “Why did you stay sane?”
“I didn’t have the luxury of going mad,” I said. “I couldn’t drink or swallow a bottle of pills because I have too many powerful people trying to get me killed. I have to keep it together because if I don’t, Morvilind stops the cure spells and Russell is going to die…oh.”
Vander nodded. “Seems like you just answered your own question.”
I let out a long breath.
“Might be why you’re so angry at him, too,” said Vander. “Because you’ve sacrificed so much to save his life and then he goes and risks it.”
“No,” I said. “I don’t own him. Russell’s life belongs to Russell, not to me. I’m not angry at him. I’m angry at myself. Because I’m a goddamn idiot.”
“How so?” said Vander.
“I just disappeared,” I said, pacing back and forth. “On everyone. I broke up with my boyfriend, walked out on Russell and the Marneys, and I didn’t tell them where I was going. What did I think would happen? They would just accept it and move on with their lives? I should have realized that Russell would go looking for me. And because I didn’t realize it, he almost got killed today.”
“You can’t blame yourself for having limitations,” said Vander.
“Can’t I?” I said. “It’s never stopped me before.” I stopped pacing and rubbed my forehead with the heels of my hands.
“And Lorenz,” said Vander. “Russell didn’t go looking for him. He came looking for Russell.”
“Yeah,” I said. “Lorenz tried to kill me before, but this time he’s crossed the line. Next time I see him, I’m going to kill him.”
“Then what are you going to do now?” said Vander.
“Get you and the others to safety,” I said. “Figure out a way to keep Russell safe. And then find Lorenz.”
Vander nodded. “And when you find Lorenz, what are you going to do?”
I shrugged. “Kill him.”
“How?”
I snorted. “What do you mean, how? I’ll shoot him in the head. Or I’ll send a fireball through his skull or throw a lightning globe into his chest.”
Vander frowned. “And how will you defend yourself during the fight?”
I shrugged again. “I’ll get out of the way. Or I’ll use an ice wall to block the attacks.”
“An ice wall…” Vander shook his head in exasperation. “For God’s sake. An ice wall?”
“What’s wrong with using an ice wall to stop bullets?” I said, annoyed. “It works.”
“Obviously,” said Vander. “As does using a cinder block as a shield to deflect punches. You can use a cinder block to stop punches, yes. It will work. But there are vastly more efficient ways to do it.”
“Like what?” I said, half-annoyed, half-intrigued.
“Do you happen to know the Shield spell?” said Vander. “Or the Splinter spell?”
“I’ve never even heard of them,” I said.
“For God’s sake!” Vander gazed at the ceiling, shook his head, and looked back at me.
“What?” I said. “Why does that annoy you so much?”
“I must tell you something that will irritate you,” said Vander. “Lord Morvilind has…something of a reputation in certain circles.”
“No!” I said with mock surprise. “Let me guess. Morvilind the Magebreaker has a terrifying reputation.”
“That is true,” said Vander. “He also has a reputation for using up shadow agents rather quickly.”
“Heard that one, too,” I said. I had even met one of my predecessors. She hadn’t aged well.
“Did you also hear,” said Vander, “that Morvilind had a reputation for training his shadow agents in such a way so they couldn’t possibly threaten him? He would teach them just enough magic to achieve his goals, but not enough that they could rebel against him or ally with his enemies.”
“I…guessed something like that, yeah,” I said. Arvalaeon and Rosalyn Madero had all said as much.
“To put it bluntly, he trained you to be very good at illusion magic, but deficient in all other areas,” said Vander. “I imagine that was disrupted when he put you into that Eternity Crucible…”
“Actually, he didn’t,” I said. “One of the Inquisitors did and didn’t bother to ask Morvilind first. I probably shouldn’t tell you which one…”
“Ah,” said Vander. “Lord Inquisitor Arvalaeon, wasn’t it?”
“How the hell did you know that?” I said.
“Because I am older than you are and have known of them longer,” said Vander. “With the addition of the Crucible’s warped time you are about…one hundred and eighty years old, I guess?” I nodded. “I am five and a half centuries old, and both Morvilind and Arvalaeon have been powerful and influential during that time, and it is well-known that Morvilind and Arvalaeon hate each other. Or perhaps that is too strong a word. Morvilind hates Arvalaeon and considers him insufficiently ruthless to save the Elves and retake Kalvarion from the Archons. I doubt Arvalaeon hates anyone, but he thinks that Morvilind is too ruthless and will sabotage his own efforts.”
“But Arvalaeon was the one who put me into the Eternity Crucible,” I said, shivering as the bloody memories washed through my mind once more.
Vander shrugged. “Morvilind will not want you to become too powerful, lest he lose control over you. Which I suspect is in danger of happening.”
“He did say our current arrangement was…unprecedented,” I said.
“Arvalaeon probably views you as a future asset,” said Vander. “Someone he can use in a future crisis or emergency. That’s how he thinks.”
“And what do you think, Nathan Vander?” I said. “Do you hate humans? Do you want to kill us all? Or enslave us?”
Vander didn’t say anything for a while.
“You know,” he said at last. “I rather like it here.”
“Seriously?” I said.
“I like being Nathan Vander,” he said. “I like teaching shop class and working at Sergeant Bob’s in the summer. I like going for a fast food cheeseburger at the end of the week. I…” His voice trailed off. “I was an Archon for centuries, so you know how much it costs me to say this. But the High Queen has built a stable civilization here. Is she heavy-handed and her nobles tyrannical? Yes. Does she keep slaves? Yes. But there are no death camps on Earth, and she doesn’t let the human nation-states fight each other. There hasn’t been a genocide on Earth for centuries, and humans used to have a genocide every twenty-five to forty years like clockwork. I am so utterly pained to admit it, Miss Moran. Tarlia is an iron-handed tyrant without a speck of conscience…but she has brought stability and order to both the exiled Elves and humanity. Is she a tyrant? Yes. But all the alternatives are so much worse.”
“She does keep human slaves,” I said. “And she has nuked human cities before.”
&
nbsp; “Humans kept other humans as slaves right up until the Conquest,” said Vander. “The pre-Conquest American Presidents kept millions of people locked in their prison systems. Is that better or worse? And the High Queen nuked human cities to stop the Archons from building a beachhead here. The Archons, incidentally, do regard humans as annoying apes, and will either exterminate or totally enslave humanity should they conquer Earth, and…” He shook his head and laughed.
“What?” I said. “It’s not funny.”
“It’s not,” said Vander. “But I am laughing at myself. I am defending the High Queen to a human. My younger self would have been horrified.”
“My younger self would definitely be horrified,” I said, thinking of the woman I had been before the Eternity Crucible, “if she could see me now.”
“Perhaps that is the punishment for our sins,” said Vander. “We live to see what we have become.”
“Why are we having this conversation?” I said. “There are more urgent things to do.”
“Yes,” said Vander. His dark eyes met mine again. “I need to teach you two spells.”
I blinked. “Why?”
“Several reasons,” said Vander. “It offends me that your magical education was so deficient. If you’re going to go up against people like Lorenz and that renegade necromancer, you need to know how to defend yourself.” I started to interrupt, but Vander kept talking. “I’m not saying you don’t know how to fight, but your magical defenses aren’t very good. A Cloaking spell won’t stop a bullet. You’re like a boxer with a hell of a right hook but a glass jaw.”
“That…makes sense,” I conceded. With the regeneration spell that Arvalaeon had taught me, I could heal myself, but that didn’t mean I enjoyed the experience of getting shot.
“Besides, Russell’s a good kid,” said Vander. “If you get killed, he’s going to be upset.”
“And he dies of frostfever,” I said.
Vander grunted. “He cares less about that and more about you.”
I didn’t say anything, but the guilt pulsed through me.
“All right,” said Vander. “I’m going to teach you two spells that you’re going to find useful.” He flexed the fingers of his right hand. “Ready?”
“Yeah,” I said. “Let’s go to school.”
“Okay,” said Vander. He walked closer and stopped in front of me. He was taller than I was, which was annoying, but most people were taller than me. “This is going to feel a little strange.”
“I spent a century and a half in an Eternity Crucible, buddy,” I said. “A little strange is fun and games by comparison.”
“Hmm. You can joke about it,” said Vander. He flexed his right hand again, blue light shining around his fingers. “That is probably a good sign, psychologically speaking. Here we go.”
He tapped my forehead with two fingers, and a spell surged through my thoughts. I’d had this happen a few times before, and I still wasn’t entirely sure how it worked. It was a specific variant of the mindtouch spell I had stolen from Hailey Adams. The mindtouch spell let a wizard look into the thoughts and memories of another. This spell allowed a wizard to imprint the knowledge of a specific spell into the memories of another user of magic.
Vander lowered his hand, and I stepped back, blinking as I examined the knowledge that he had put into my skull.
“It is called,” he said, “the Shield spell. A basic element of magical education for the Elves, though Morvilind seems to have overlooked that for you.”
“What does it do?” I said. “Shield things, I assume?”
“Yes,” said Vander, taking several quick steps back. “Try it.” I nodded and summoned power, focusing my will. “It might take you a few tries to get…”
I cast the spell, pushing out my left hand, and a flickering shield of gray light appeared about a foot in front of me. The translucent shield was about five feet in diameter, and I found that holding the spell in place wasn’t much harder than maintaining the Masking or the Occlusion spell.
“Or you’ll get it right the first time,” said Vander. He hesitated and then cast the spell to sense the presence of magical force. “Are you getting any feedback or power bleeding out of the spell?”
“None,” I said. “It seems efficient. What does this Shield actually block?”
“At the moment, kinetic force,” said Vander. He stooped, picked up a broken piece of concrete, and tossed it at me. It struck the Shield and rebounded to land on the floor with a clatter. “Truth be told, I think you’re strong enough to block gunshots with this. Not every wizard is.”
“Can it just block kinetic attacks?” I said. “Or can it deflect other kinds of force?”
“It can deflect any kind of force or energy you know how to wield,” said Vander. “I presume you can use elemental fire?”
“You saw me blow up those orcs,” I said.
“Right,” said Vander in a dry tone. “You can use a different kind of force as the base for the Shield.”
“Like tuning a radio to a different frequency,” I said.
“That is a crude metaphor, but essentially accurate,” said Vander. “Try casting the spell again, but this time use elemental flame as the base.”
I dropped the Shield, modified it a little in my head, and cast the spell again. This time the Shield appeared as a disc of harsh orange-yellow light. Vander raised his hand and cast a spell of his own, and flung a sphere of fire at me. I flinched, but the spell struck my Shield and shattered into nothingness. I felt the pressure of his spell against my mind, but I held the Shield against it with ease. I suspect I could have held the Shield against a far more powerful attack.
“Huh,” I said. “That is useful. Thank you.”
I felt a sudden wave of annoyance. Not at Vander, but at Morvilind and Arvalaeon. Why the hell hadn’t they taught me this spell? It could have saved me a lot of trouble. I remembered what Vander had said, how Morvilind had wanted me talented but limited to achieve his ends. Arvalaeon could have spared me so much damned pain if he had taught me this spell, but he had wanted me to struggle and become powerful to kill Lord Castomyr.
So why had Vander taught me the Shield spell?
He had been an Archon, but now he was loyal to the High Queen.
Maybe he was something rare. An Archon who had actually believed in freedom.
“There is one limitation,” said Vander, picking up the chunk of concrete again. “Observe.”
He flicked his wrist, and the piece of concrete passed through my Shield and bounced off my knee.
“Ow,” I said. “Let me guess. I can only Shield against one kind of force or attack at once.”
“I’m afraid that is correct,” said Vander. “More powerful wizards can cast Shields that deflect multiple forms of force and magical power at once. Alas, I could never manage that. I suspect you will in time if you continue to practice. Which given the dangerous trajectory of your life, no doubt you will.”
“Yeah,” I said, taking a deep breath as I dropped the Shield spell. “Hey. Thanks, Mr. Vander. That’s really useful. Truth be told, it’s one of the nicest things an Elf has ever done for me.”
“Oh, we’re not done yet, Miss Moran,” said Vander. “I have one more spell I can teach you. I assume you are familiar with illusion magic?”
“You saw me Cloak,” I said.
“In point of fact, I did not see you Cloak,” said Vander.
I snorted. “Heh. Okay. Yeah, good point. Do you know the Cloak spell?”
“I do,” said Vander. “But I have never been any good with illusion magic. Observe.”He cast the Cloak spell, silver light flashing around his hand. He sort of…sputtered, became vaguely translucent for a few seconds, and then the spell ended.
“Yeah,” I said. “That…wouldn’t do very much.”
“No,” said Vander in that dry voice again. “I have different skills. But you’re far better with illusion magic than I am.” He flexed his right hand. “So I can teach you another sp
ell you can put to good use.”
He stepped forward and touched my forehead, and again the knowledge of a spell flooded through my skull. It was…strange, altered somehow. It was an illusion spell, and it reminded me a great deal of the Mask spell I used to disguise myself. Yet when I used the Mask, the power wrapped around me, but this spell projected arcane force out from my body.
“What’s this one called?” I said.
“It’s called the Splinter Mask,” said Vander. “A variant of the Masking spell that Lord Morvilind taught you.”
“Splinter Mask?” I said. “What splinters?”
“Cast the spell and find out,” said Vander. “It won’t hurt you. Or me.”
I nodded and cast the spell. It felt just like casting the Mask spell, which meant I needed to choose a disguise. On a whim, I decided to Mask myself as Vander, so I held his features and appearance in my mind as I cast the spell.
Silver light flashed around me, and I became an exact duplicate of Nathan Vander.
And seven more copies of Nathan Vander appeared around me.
“What the hell?” I said, shocked, and I took a step back.
All seven Vander duplicates did the same thing.
Vander leaned forward, peering at both me and the duplicates. “Even after all this time, I’m still not used to seeing myself as a human.”
“What is this?” I said, looking at the nearest duplicate. All the illusionary duplicates followed suit.
“Well, you know how when you look into a splintered mirror, you see multiple images?” said Vander.
“Yeah.”
“The spell just Splintered the Mask,” said Vander. “It’s the same principle.”
“Neat,” I said, though I wondered what practical use that would have. Then an idea occurred to me. “I want to try something.”
I dropped the Splintered Mask and cast the spell again. This time, I just used the Masking part of the spell to mirror my appearance, and then I Splintered the Mask. Seven perfect duplicates of myself appeared around me.
That was a little distressing because I didn’t look all that great. God, I really had lost too much weight, and my eyes looked crazy. No wonder Russell had been alarmed to see me.
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