“It’s lovely, Emonael. I suspect that this is your handiwork, as I don’t recall having gone in for a fitting,” Marin said, smiling.
“Yes. You’ve been looking cold lately, so I took the time to make you a new set of robes. The mug also keeps the temperature of drinks for three times as long, so a hot drink won’t cool as fast,” Emonael explained, relaxing a bit. “Would you like help trying it on?”
“Not quite yet. See, I had one more thing to do. How would all of you like to see what it was that I saw that prompted me to begin my research?” Marin asked, her smile widening at the stunned eagerness on the faces of the others, and murmured. “That’s what I thought.”
Chapter 22
“Why’re we outside, High Mage?” Damiya asked, her breath coming out in puffs of white mist due to the cold.
The Association grounds were beautiful under the thick blanket of winter snow, especially with how it glittered under the full moon and brilliant stars. The nearby field was virtually untouched by anything, and Emonael couldn’t help wondering the same as Damiya, though she kept her concerns private. Marin wouldn’t have brought them outside without reason.
“I brought you outside because there’s no other place appropriate to do this. Now, give me a minute, this will take a bit of concentration,” Marin replied, her voice unusually distant, yet soft despite that.
Nia stepped close to Emonael, whispering, “Do you know what she’s doing, Emonael?”
“I haven’t the foggiest idea. Just . . . wait a bit. Believe me, she feels the cold more keenly than any of us do,” Emonael murmured in return, and Nia subsided, watching and waiting as Marin began casting a spell.
It was a spell that Emonael had never seen before, but despite that she was able to pick apart some of the pieces of it. It was quite simple in some ways, and she watched in fascination as the magic Marin wove carved a circle a hundred feet across into the snow, every aspect of it perfect, and slowly carved sigils all around the edges of the area. It took a couple of minutes, but considering the amount of work it saved, that wasn’t much time at all.
“There we are. That should do the job. Now I need to get ready to do my part,” Marin said, nodding and smiling back at them. “In this case, I’m functioning as something of a focus for the spell, allowing it to focus on the right point in time.”
Uthar looked like he was about to speak, but Emonael spoke suddenly, her eyes narrowing. “Teacher, are you planning to scry upon the time that you first saw the Ritual of the Golden Moon?”
“No. I’m going to reach into the past, to the first time that I participated in the performance, and use my spell to recreate it with illusions,” Marin corrected, shaking her head. “Only by having someone who was truly there will this allow you to see and understand what it was that I saw.”
“High Mage, may I ask why you’re doing this?” Uthar asked respectfully, bowing his head slightly. “I do appreciate that you are doing it for us, but I don’t entirely understand why.”
Marin didn’t respond immediately, instead murmuring the words of a spell, which slowly washed over her. At first, Emonael didn’t see any changes, but then Marin’s hair shortened to barely more than shoulder-length, all of the strands darkening to a slightly more vibrant hue than she’d possessed since the demon had known her. Marin’s skin grew slightly softer and less worn, almost imperceptible changes taking place as more freckles appeared on her skin, and her body grew fuller, less frail and more used to travel and activity.
“I might have chosen to share this with Emonael at some point, because there’s a part of me that’s always wanted her to understand why I chose the path I did. All of you might be able to do so as well, so I am choosing to share,” Marin’s voice was slightly stronger, and she hopped over the edge of the circle, smiling as she did so, murmuring, “Ah, to be young again in truth.”
“What did she just do?” Andrew asked, looking slightly confused.
“She used transformation magic to make herself young again. A very narrow form of shapechanging,” Christoff explained, hugging his coat tight around himself. “It doesn’t actually change her age, but it lets her act as if she was younger.”
“Then why doesn’t she use it more?” Andrew asked, watching Marin step toward the center of the circle. “I mean, if she can act as if she’s young . . .”
“It expends too much mana to be worth it. Beyond that, I asked her once, and Teacher explained that she’d made a conscious choice to never attempt to extend her lifespan beyond its natural limits,” Emonael explained, pausing for a moment before adding softly. “She easily could, if she wanted to. Not without limit, mind, but she could dramatically extend her life by centuries or more, based on what I know.”
“Why wouldn’t she?” Nia asked. “I thought almost everyone would want to live longer.”
“In a way, her research is her life, Nia. Without purpose, what more is there for her? When she returned with the fruit, Teacher told me that the friend who she’d gone to visit had passed on. The handful of people she sees as her friends . . .” Emonael paused, looking around the group, and then finished. “We outnumber all of them, and she doesn’t know how many of them still live.”
“Oh.” Nia almost whispered, her voice was so quiet.
As they’d spoken, Marin had reached the middle of the circle, the snow broken where she’d stepped, and the High Mage was standing there, her lips moving as her fingers slowly danced through the gestures of a spell. The sense of magic gathering prickled at Emonael’s senses, like the sensation in the air before lightning struck. It took a minute for her to realize that the circle and symbols were glowing with the same light as the moon itself, the light almost indistinguishable from the snow.
“Balvess, Lord of the Golden Moon! I stand before you this eve, and raise my voice in thy name!” Marin’s voice echoed across the clearing clearly as she looked at the sky, raising her hands as golden light pooled in them. “May your gaze pierce the mists of time, and reveal unto me that which has long since passed!”
With her final word, Marin took a single, firm step, and for an instant it seemed like the air shook as a deep, powerful drum sounded. The circle and symbols burned a brilliant gold, and the world within the circle changed.
Emonael gasped as a hot wind like that from a savannah in summer brushed over her, her eyes widening as the stars shifted their alignment to match, and the moon seemed to quadruple in size, glowing with a brilliant golden light. Drums sounded all around them, their tones deep and powerful, and where Marin stood there was no snow. Instead, immaculately groomed white sand surrounded Marin, along with close to a hundred other men and women in seven concentric rings of dancers.
The others around Marin all seemed to be cast in the same mold, humans with darkly tanned skin from years on the road, dark-haired and dark-eyed, wearing elaborate but loose clothing that didn’t confine their movements, and Marin’s own garments had shifted to match them. Marin wasn’t at the center of the circle, but was in the third ring of dancers. Young children no more than twelve years old were in the outermost circle, while the leader at the center was a man with weathered skin and graying hair.
A dozen massive drums, played by similar men and women, along with pipes and fiddles, began to play all around the dancers, and with the music they began to dance in tandem to the deep, throbbing beat. Emonael had seen performances that were better in her life, ones which were better choreographed . . . but this one was primal, and she could almost feel the magic gathering, even in the here and now.
“How . . . how is this an illusion?” Damiya gasped, her eyes wide. “I can feel the drums in my bones, the heat in the air . . .”
“A deific blessing?” Uthar suggested. “She spoke a prayer, did she not?”
“She did,” Emonael agreed, shaken as she watched. “Shh. Watch. There’s no chance of ever seeing this again.”
They quieted, and the dance continued for nearly a minute, each ring of dancers moving opposi
te of their neighbors. Marin’s movements were smooth and polished, as if she’d done this a thousand times before, and it occurred to Emonael that she’d never heard her teacher sing, only moments before the dancers raised their voices in song.
The song was wordless, but that didn’t matter. Each ring was singing a different portion of a massive symphony, the tones echoing with magic long past, and Emonael watched breathlessly as they cast their spell, the music thrumming through her.
Those in the innermost ring took flight between one step and the next, but they didn’t pause, their dance continuing in mid-air, unsupported by the ground as streamers of light sprang into existence, all the colors of the rainbow creating a perfectly patterned tapestry to frame each group of dancers as they took flight themselves. Some dancers took on the form of flame-haired genies, while others took on the aspect of sylphs, their entire bodies like living wind itself, and the music grew louder and more potent.
In the sky the moon seemed to grow still more brilliant, the light shining on the gathering with growing intensity. As overwhelming as it was, it took Emonael a few moments before she realized she could identify her teacher’s voice. It was the first true flaw to the spell that the demon could find, that she could pick out her teacher’s voice, beautiful and just a bit stronger than any of the other voices in the circle.
The dance seemed to go on and on, a glittering, beautiful display. Emonael slowly realized that such was its entire purpose. The dance was a form of worship, designed to be beautiful for the sake of beauty itself, and nothing more. But slowly, one by one, the other figures began to fade. It started with the outermost circle, as one of the young dancers shimmered, growing more ephemeral, almost like shimmering smoke, and vanished. One by one, each of the outermost circle vanished, then the next. It took long minutes, as one moment the figures were there, and then they were not.
Forty, then thirty, then twenty and ten . . . at last it was just Marin and the leader of the dance, even the figures around the edge of the circle fading away, though the music remained strong. The leader slowed, and Emonael saw him smile at Marin, giving her the faintest of nods . . . and then he was gone as well, leaving Marin descending to the sand, dancing alone. In a flash of inspiration, Emonael saw the hint of desperation to that dance, the desire for it not to end . . . but end it did, as the light of the circle faded, and with it so did the golden moon and the music.
Where the illusion had been, the snow had melted away, leaving the field as though it’d never been snowed upon, and still Marin danced under the moonlight, her clothing back to normal. For a long minute, Emonael watched in silence, the others almost forgotten.
Eventually Marin slowed, then stopped, breathing hard. Tears slowly trickled down her face as she looked up at the moon, and Emonael saw her lips move for a moment. The demon hesitated before approaching.
“Teacher? Are . . . are you alright?” Emonael asked softly.
“I’m fine. It just struck me hard. Seeing them again, dancing with them . . .” Marin paused, looking at Emonael and the others, her eyes glittering with her tears, and she slowly reverted to her normal appearance, her voice thick as she spoke. “That was the beginning, in many ways. I hope you . . . you . . .”
As Marin staggered, Emonael darted forward, catching her teacher before she fell. Moments later, Andrew was there, catching Marin’s other side.
“Teacher! Are you alright?” Emonael asked, worry flooding through her.
“I’ll . . . I’ll be fine. Just drained,” Marin murmured, her eyes half-closed. “Teleporting and this . . . was a bit too much, it seems. Need rest.”
“Well, we’ll get you to bed, High Mage,” Andrew said, looking at Emonael in concern, and she nodded firmly.
“Agreed,” the demon said. “Let’s go.”
As they carried Marin toward the tower, Emonael heard Uthar speak behind them, his voice almost shaking with emotion. “I’ve never heard of something like that before. Gods above . . . no wonder . . .”
Chapter 23
Despite Emonael’s initial worry, Marin didn’t suffer any lasting harm from the effort she’d expended over midwinter. The mage had taken the following day easy, while Emonael had found herself occupied by frequently chasing off her students when they tried to raid the remaining cache of fruit.
The only thing that might have been exciting was when Hothar visited, the High Mage seeming honestly worried when he’d seen the massive circle where the ritual had taken place. It hadn’t taken much more than explaining that Marin had been showing them a spell to ease the man’s worries, and with the warning his questions had given her, Emonael had hunted through Marin’s notes until she found a spell that she used to fill the area with snow once more.
With the festival past, things gradually settled back into a routine, and with it Emonael found herself growing oddly comfortable. It was strange, due to how much conflict she knew was on the lower planes, and with her nature such that it should have led to Marin attempting to destroy her. Instead, she was safer and happier than she’d been in decades, with much of her time spent delving into the mysteries of magic that she and Marin were unlocking.
Marin seemed in higher spirits as well, the High Mage returning to her research with gusto, starting on the fourth volume of her codex in short order. Emonael’s days were largely spent coaxing Andrew, Christoff, Damiya, Nia, and Uthar through the lessons she’d chosen for the day and week. At times, they picked up the knowledge easily, while other times she had to spend two weeks on a subject instead of one, and in the process, Emonael came to understand her students much better.
Andrew was a bit prickly at times, hailing from his background as a farmer, and also being one of no more than ten humans in the Association. Even so, what he lacked in talent, the young man made up in hard work, and more than once Emonael had paused near his door in the Grand Hall to hear him practicing his incantations relentlessly. He’d lost his voice once due to over-use, and after some teasing, Emonael had asked Marin to heal him, and he’d made certain not to overdo it again.
Christoff was very different than most of the others. He didn’t excel in any particular field, and the half-elf was low-key and calm enough that people often overlooked him, but more and more, Emonael was beginning to think that her friend was perhaps the most well-rounded of her students, and he was certainly the patient one. Most of the others would grow impatient when they couldn’t manage a spell, but Christoff was different. If he couldn’t get a technique right after a few tries, he’d check his notes, then check with Emonael to ensure that he had the right information before continuing until he could manage it. Still, he became a bit distracted at times, since he thought he was keeping his courtship of the baker’s daughter, Leah, a secret. Emonael found his reticence adorable in its own way.
Damiya had surprised Emonael in turn. Where initially Emonael had thought that the woman was shy and the calm one when compared to Christoff, things had turned out to be quite different than she’d anticipated. Damiya was shy, but that merely served to conceal a quiet, fierce passion that somewhat startled Emonael, along with a stubborn streak even stronger than Marin’s.
More and more, Emonael sometimes wondered if perhaps a mortal’s affinity for magic mirrored their personality, or if the affinity shaped the mortal. Regardless, Damiya had grown slightly more difficult to deal with, and part of Emonael regretted sleeping with the young woman . . . though not that much. Her friend might be a touch possessive from time to time, but she calmed down eventually, a matter which was ironically aided by her studies of the ingot Marin had given Damiya. Emonael sometimes grew slightly worried, when Damiya said she could almost hear the stone singing to her. Otherwise, the elf seemed to be acting normally, though, so Emonael didn’t step in.
Then there was Nia, and Emonael couldn’t help but sigh as she thought about the young half-elf’s progress. Nia had a prodigious talent with magic, and her mana reserves were greater than anyone’s in their group, save for Emonael
and Marin themselves, but at times she was a bit too proud of herself. Marin saying that she was impulsive was accurate, and Emonael sometimes worried that she’d come to the Grand Hall to find it in flames because some young apprentice had groped Nia!
The other problem with Nia was that she was a bit too proud and sure of herself. She was extremely happy with her magical talents, and also slightly lazy because of it. She didn’t have to work hard to get a good result, so she generally didn’t bother. In the end, it was ironically Andrew that had galvanized the young woman into action. Emonael was amused to watch the pair verbally spar, with Nia always slightly more arrogant and determined to exceed the human. Every time Andrew started catching up, though . . . that was when Nia’s talent would truly shine, as she forced herself to pull ahead again, because she was absolutely determined not to let her fellow student catch up. Emonael found the entire situation entertaining, though she was slightly disappointed that she didn’t have a younger version of Marin, like she’d initially hoped.
Last was Uthar, and Emonael always felt mixed opinions in his particular case. In some ways, he was the most skilled of her students, quickly picking up the spells and gestures, and able to control his mana on a far more instinctive level than the others. Conversely, he had the least mastery of the theory behind the spells they were using. Uthar had an excellent memory for music, and he’d set each spell to its own song and gestures, allowing him to cast more readily than the others, but when it came to adjusting or improvising on the spells, things became more difficult. He had to spend hours poring over the books to change the elements of his spells, especially because he wanted his music to be perfect. Emonael almost dreaded teaching him about ritual magic or the other, more complex concepts that Marin was working on.
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