The Magic, Warped

by Rick Field

  Amy licked her lips. “You attempted multiple methods of calculation and did not find any reason why a blood-based Construct should not succeed. This has led us to the conclusion that either the author made a mistake in his construction ritual, and reported the catastrophic failure of his only test, or the author decided that the results should not be known and censored his own work.”

  Liane nodded as they crossed the courtyard. As usual, she threw a glance at the fountain. It reflected a pair of beady eyes back at her. Magic to the wielder unnerved her with its reflections of her broken and ever-changing magic, and the pair of unblinking eyes that beheld her were no less unnerving than the sometimes nightmarish reflections shown to her.

  Averting her gaze, she focused on the laboratory building. “Why would the author censor his own book, Assistant?”

  “If the author censored his own book, it would be because of an unpredictable element within the element of blood, Proctor. Blood is the element of life, of change, and also of magic. It is possible that a Construct based on such an element might have unpredictable results, results that are too dangerous to be put in a book. In such a case, the author might have decided that only a few should have the knowledge, reported the experiment as a failure in his work, and left the door open for those like us, those who know it should work yet see the failure, to determine the cause for ourselves.”

  They descended the stairs in silence, bypassing the four consecutive levels of the library, walking deeper and deeper under the earth until they reached the heavily grated fifth level, the advanced ritual level.

  Together, they reached a locked room, a room that bore a designation plaque indicating that it was in use by Liane for purposes of research into her masterpiece, just about the only cause that would allow for secrecy.

  The room was made from the standard obsidian black stone, and held the runic circles as described by Amy in Liane's earlier questioning. With a professional eye, the Proctor investigated her Assistant's work. Apart from a few minor corrections, the work had been up to Amy's usual exceptional standards.

  “Good work, Assistant.”

  “Thank you, Proctor.”

  “It is almost time for the meeting of the student council. We'll perform the ritual itself later,” Liane said as she moved to the door. Amy said nothing, and followed Liane out.

  Ten minutes later, Liane was once more attempting to make sense of her book on practical magic while she waited for the other council members to come in. It was still early, almost unusually so, but the first meeting of the year was always special. This was the meeting where she would become one of the two Magi of the student council, it would also be the meeting where the new council members would replace those that left in the previous year.

  She looked over the edge of her book, to where her Assistant was sitting at the council table, working on a sheaf of paper which probably housed one of the challenging problems Liane had set for her. Again, pride filled Liane. Not only was her Assistant a brilliant student, she would now be taking a place at the council table herself, despite being only a third-year student.

  Liane wondered what the reaction of the others would be. Although not technically against the rules, as any student could ask for membership, it most definitely was unusual. Amy had asked for membership, and in a rather unusual move, the two previous Magi had approved it.

  The new Magus tried to focus on her book, yet her thoughts wavered. Maybe it had been a test, set by her precursors, to see how she would handle an unusual event. Or perhaps they just hadn't bothered to read the application, and just approved it.

  Liane closed her book, she wouldn't be able to focus on it anyway. Just as likely a scenario was that Amy really had earned her place at this table, and this wasn't some childish plot to get back at her, personally. Whatever the reason or the case may be, Amy had earned her spot at the table.

  They had entered the council chamber together, and Liane had taken her place at the head of the table, the place she had earned with her promotion to Magus. Amy was seated down on her left, the first seat available for regular council members.

  One by one, the other members of the Student Council started to file in, each one noting Amy's seated position at the table. Some didn't react, but most frowned at what they believed was a gross violation of the rules of conduct and propriety. The seats at the table were reserved for council members, and Liane, despite being Magus, shouldn't allow her Assistant to sit down at it.

  Before long, only Milor was missing, and Liane frowned slightly at his absence. It wasn't like her friend to be late, and she wondered what was wrong. He finally showed up, barely on time to be proper, and slipped into the last available seat. It was only then that the other members realized that they had the exact number of council members if they included Amy.

  “My Lady, I feel that I must protest,” Garet Lightningcrafter said, a violent twitch in his hand plainly visible as he said so. “I feel I must ask why a third year student is seated at this table?” He looked at Amy, and finished, “No offense intended, My Lady.”

  “None taken, of course, My Lord,” Amy replied respectfully. “I am fully aware of the unusual nature of this arrangement.”

  “My Assistant requested her position at this table, My Lords and My Ladies,” Liane said. “As we all know, the last act of presiding Magi is to approve the council members of their successors, this is to prevent the presiding Magi from filling the council with their own people. As such, the decision that my Assistant be appointed as a full council member lies completely at the feet of our predecessors.”

  “Again, no offense intended, My Lady,” Garet went on, a twitch in his shoulder momentarily distracting Liane. “But it seems that having your Assistant on this council would give you a rather sizable advantage.”

  “If my Lord is implying that I would vote the same as my Proctor, I am afraid that he is mistaken,” Amy replied calmly. “Proctor and I have discussed this between us; as long as we are within these chambers, I am council, and she is Magus. I do not always agree with her, and I will vote as my conscience dictates.”

  Liane merely nodded in response, and Garet seemed to accept the explanation.

  She glanced at Dion Woodmaster, the Warlock Magus. He calmly looked back, making no effort to either move or speak.

  It appeared as if he were going to let her keep going on, probably only to wait for her to make a mistake, then pounce.

  It would have been a valid strategy in attaining dominance with anyone else.

  She was, however, Liane, The MagicWarper. She was used to not making many mistakes, and those mistakes she did make were corrected soon after. She would be calm, she assured herself, calm and collected, and think through everything she said. She wouldn't allow him an opportunity to react. His strategy would backfire, he would be seen as uninterested in his position.

  “I believe the first point of business should be on the current set of general purpose rules that are still in effect,” Liane said, turning to face the council members. “Does anyone have any business in regards to the opening hours of the library for general students?”

  The meeting dragged on for much longer than Liane had either wished or anticipated, and by the time the new Student Council had built up its own practices and made some minor changes merely to show that they could, the Sun Charm was hanging low in the sky. Liane felt mentally drained after hours of debate and discussion, and she decided not to pursue her experiment today. It would be asking for trouble in her current condition. She did note, with pride, that her Assistant had kept her own during the discussions.

  By the time they were back in their private rooms, both Magus and Assistant were almost dragging themselves forward on pure willpower alone. Liane hoped that the marathon session they had just endured would be the only one of its kind. She couldn't recall any sessions of such length last year, and she hoped her own tenure as Magus would be as uneventful as last year's had been.

  The next morning, as t
hey walked to the laboratory building for a nice, relaxing, training session with Milor, Liane was reminded of one of her duties. Noticing that Ouroboros' body wasn't shining as brightly as it usually did, she recalled not having fed him in quite some time. Flicking up a small power token, she watched with satisfaction how Ouroboros snatched the little item out of the air. The glow of its body picked up again. “One of these days, I will forget,” she muttered to herself. “A Construct really doesn't have any sense of self preservation or a will to live.”

  Although the comment had been aimed at herself, Amy, her faithful Assistant, still picked up on it. “Perhaps, Proctor, you should try and find an alternative way of powering a Construct,” she said.

  Curious, the Proctor glanced down at the younger girl. “Perhaps you have an idea, Assistant?” she asked.

  Amy looked at the ground, before giving her Proctor a shy glance. “Proctor, using that training spell you designed to teach me about the construction of Runic Circles, you are able to increase and decrease the size of the runes. What would happen if you built a permanent anchor, and shrunk it down to the size of a power token?”

  Liane frowned, and thought about it. It was easy and simple, and she wondered why she hadn't thought of it herself. She frowned, and thought about it. “A permanent anchor not buried in the soil does not draw as much power as it can,” she said, out loud. “Perhaps ten to fifteen percent of one that is buried. Shrinking an anchor to manageable size – let's say, one centimeter cubed, will reduce the amount of power in a linear fashion.”

  She glanced at Amy. “One centimeter cubed is one millionth the size of a full anchor, so the power output would be reduced a million times the fifteen percent a non-buried anchor would be able to produce.” She rubbed her chin in thought. “With a few modifications, it might be possible to bring that up to the power output of a small token.”

  “A never ending power token, Proctor,” Amy said.

  Liane nodded. “Dangerous,” she commented. “It would mean permanent magic at the disposal of anyone willing to pay for it.” She looked around, dragged Amy into the nearest empty classroom, and sealed the door. “That would mean that any Commoner wealthy enough to acquire one would have permanent access to magic. It would destabilize our society, erode the power base of the Nobility.”

  Amy blinked, not having realized the wider implications. “We will need to be careful, Assistant,” Liane finished, and rubbed her chin with the fingers of her right hand, while thinking through the theory she had learned from both Doctorii and books over the years, building her mental picture. It could work. There was no magical reason it shouldn't work, only political ones.

  Liane had started to dislike politics from her time on the Student Council. She would do her duty to the best of her ability, but she would not enjoy it. Nor would she chase a career in the field after graduation.

  Having made up her mind, she clapped her hands and pulled them apart. The virtual representation of the layout and buildup of a power anchor appeared in between her wide-stretched arms, the one-meter-cubed block of stone rotating lazily on it central axis.

  She pressed her hands closer together until the cube had shrunk to the size she desired, so small that the faint blue smoky writing was too small for her to make out, and whispered the creation spell she had become intimately familiar with. After all, it was the source of Liane's ever-extending collection of strange and exotic mathematical constructions, housed on a shelf in the quarters she shared with Amy. Ever since she had started working with the fountain, she had created a representation of her final stage of the day, as both a memorial and a testimony to her hard work.

  It was paying off in spades, as she was learning how to read and predict her magic, allowing her to overcome the disability that had plagued her since before she had started at the Academy. She would never be as fast as a regular Noble at learning a spell or magic, but at least she would be able to keep herself from being embarrassed when confronted by a standard spell.

  The anchor exploded as soon as it formed, and Liane bit off a pained grunt as her innate magic deflected the damage away from her.

  Blinking, she tried again, and achieved the same result. This time, she was ready for it, and managed to get herself clear without needing to rely on her magic's built-in defensive capabilities, capabilities that were both very painful and highly taxing.

  She tried again, keeping her mind on what she was doing as she shrunk the cube, and realized that arrays that were far enough on the large-scale anchor were being pressed close enough together to interfere with one another as she shrunk the anchor down. She enlarged the anchor, and started fiddling with the buildup until potentially interfering arrays were now on the other side of the cube, far enough away not to interfere with each other as she shrunk it down.

  Liane didn't see Amy's awed look as the young girl looked at her Proctor re-arranging the layout of the cubic anchor by simply moving her hands and fingers about.

  Liane shrunk the virtual cube, and tried the construction spell again. This time, it didn't explode. After the small cube had formed in her hands, Liane turned it up and over, trying to ensure that it had been created correctly. Without powerful magnification equipment, it was a lost cause.

  “This seems to be it, Assistant,” Liane finally said. The experiment had made them late. “This is as small as I could make it.” She flicked it to her Assistant, turned the door back, and legged out of the room, hoping to minimize her tardiness to her appointment with Milor.

  “I am eager to see how much energy we could get from it, Proctor,” Amy said, studying the little anchor closely as she almost-ran after Liane's long and quick strides. People moved out of Liane's way as she walked briskly by.

  She was an eighth year student now, and had reached everything she could have ever hoped and dreamed of reaching. She was Prime Student, she was a fully credited Mage working for a Master's Title, she had a well-adjusted and eager Assistant... and she was one of the two Magi of the Academy. So people moved aside as she walked.

  Especially after she had shown to the world that she was able to crush a fully trained Warlock like a bug, even when said Warlock held a sword at her throat.

  They reached the top level in short order, and Liane released a breath both in exertion and relief when she saw that Milor wasn't there yet. Leaning against the wall to wait, she looked up and down the corridor for sight of her friend. “I wonder what is keeping My Lord Milor. It's not like him to be late,” she commented, half glad to see that she wasn't the only one late, and half worried about her friend's delay.

  A small crackle followed by an equally small yelp drew her attention away from her thoughts. Glancing at Amy, Liane saw her young Assistant sucking on one finger.

  She lifted a questioning eyebrow. The younger girl looked guiltily at the ground before looking at Liane, her face still turned down. Liane lifted her eyebrow higher. Lessons from Milor had paid off, and she was able to replicate the gesture now. She intended to use it to its fullest effect.

  “The anchor is working, Proctor,” Amy confessed, removing the digit from her mouth. As quick as she was in trying to hide her finger, Liane was quicker in seeing the little red welt on the tip of it.

  Liane dropped her eyebrow and nodded. “Good. I am pleased to hear that, Assistant. Although, for future reference, you might want to set some runes to test the power delivery, rather than draw power from it to your finger.”

  “Yes, Proctor,” Amy replied in embarrassment.

  It was half an hour later that Liane determined that her friend wasn't coming. It was unusual in itself that Milor was unable to make time for their schedule, but even more so that he was unable to do so without sending word to her.

  Her unease increased, and she wondered what had happened. Yesterday, he had been almost-late to the council meeting as well. She wondered what had happened. Her mind conjured up the events of a couple of years past, where they had been attacked in the streets. Both Milor and hersel
f had increased in skill and power since then, but that meant nothing in itself. Pushing herself away from the wall, she gave a simple indication to Amy to follow her.

  It was an hour of searching later that she determined that her friend wasn't at the Academy. For a moment, she debated asking a Doctora or Doctoris, but finally decided against it. One didn't bother Doctorii with a person who failed to show up at a meeting. Her thoughts went to Blood Magic. She would be able to trace him anywhere in the world using it, but it was such a gross invasion of privacy that she dismissed it almost as quickly as she had thought it up.

  Deciding that there was no better way to settle a mind than some good and honest hard work, she looked down at Amy. “Let's go and test our hypothesis for my masterpiece, Assistant. There is no better way to settle an unsettled mind.” As they walked away, Liane's thoughts strayed once more to her absent friend, and convinced herself that he was merely indisposed, and neither ill nor injured.

  As they descended into the cellars of the laboratory building, passing the four levels of the library, she forced herself to think about her next experiment. Creating the blood-based construct would be interesting, and she wondered whether or not she would succeed.

  When they entered the ritual chamber Liane had set apart for the blood-based construct, she held out her hand, and Amy deposited a sheaf of papers she drew from her pack. The young girl, after two years of solid practice, had gotten to be extremely good at predicting what Liane would need, and where she would need it.

  Liane flipped through the papers, double checking her own work. “Everything still appears to be in order, Assistant. Nothing indicates that the experiment won't work.”

  “I am merely concerned as to why the book notes that a construct based on blood failed catastrophically on summoning, while the theory shows that the experiment should succeed, Proctor,” Amy replied, voicing her concern yet again.