Secrets and Spellcraft

by Michael G. Manning

  He sighed and started over, doing his best to keep the runes small and fine. He still failed to satisfy the professor. “Maybe if we start with something simpler.”

  Professor Dulaney shook his head. “This is a first-order spell. They don’t get much simpler than this.”

  Will furrowed his brow. “Order?”

  Dulaney waved a hand dismissively. “I’m not talking about order versus chaos, I’m referring to the complexity of the spell. Every spell is graded according to its complexity and difficulty. Spells like ‘light’ or the source-link spell are the simplest, so we don’t classify them, though some people call them zero-order, or cantrips. Most spells are at least first-order, such as this one.”

  “What are higher-order spells like?” asked Will. “Are they things like battle magics?”

  The professor scoffed. “We don’t teach battle magic. No, high-order spells are things that require complex rules or that produce complex and subtle effects. For example, a few years ago one of our better students produced a new cleaning spell that completely eliminates the need for all the simpler, single-purpose cleaning spells. Her spell was classified as eighth-order, meaning it requires a very high degree of skill to successfully cast.”

  “Selene,” muttered Will.

  “Her Highness,” said Dulaney firmly. “Don’t let anyone catch you referring to her with such familiarity. And yes, she was the originator of the spell.”

  “So, what were the simpler, single-purpose spells like?” asked Will, ignoring the rebuff.

  “Suppose you wanted to clean a rug,” said Dulaney. “There’s a spell for that, but it’s only good for rugs. You can’t use it for wood floors, or even fabrics like clothing or sheets. Or maybe you want a spell to polish your shoes. There’s a spell for that, but it’s only good for leather shoes. If you want to clean cloth shoes you have to learn a different spell. Most of those spells are second or third-order, which means they’re much easier to learn and use.”

  “Then what’s the use of her creating a much more difficult cleaning spell?”

  “Well, although it’s much harder to learn, it does it all. You can define an area, and anything within that area will be properly cleaned, polished, washed, dusted—whatever is appropriate. Conversely, if you limit the area to a single object, perhaps the shoes from my earlier example, it will perform just that task but with only the minimal amount of turyn required. The princess purification spell is hard to learn, but once you’ve mastered it, it’s the only cleaning spell you would ever need to know.”

  “Princess purification?”

  The professor smirked. “That’s what we call it, though she hates the name.”

  “How long before I can learn it?”

  Dulaney laughed. “That depends on you. If you apply yourself, maybe two years, but we don’t teach that spell.”

  “Why not?”

  “Haven’t you listened to anything I’ve said? Casting spells requires the expenditure of your life. Do you think any wizard would want to burn a day or two of his life to clean a room or do his laundry? We have a separate class for sorcerers who want to learn utility spells like that, but few of them bother to put in the effort. It’s easier just to have a servant do it.

  “Remember, as wizards, we only use magic to do things that are impossible to accomplish in a mundane fashion. Anything else is foolishness,” finished the professor.

  Speak for yourself, thought Will. I’d love to save money on my laundry, and it doesn’t cost me my life to cast spells. He couldn’t say any of that, however, so he simply nodded.

  “Back to your practice. Try again, and don’t even think about releasing your spell unless I say it’s been done properly.”

  Will didn’t manage to meet the professor’s expectations before their time came to an end, so he returned to the dorm. Since he had been exempted from the regular Alchemy class and it wasn’t a day he had to report for duty as an assistant, he had quite a bit of free time looming over his head. Naturally, he decided it would be to his benefit to continue his practice.

  Back in his room, he tried assembling the color change spell. He had gotten quite good at this, although the runes were still too thick and turyn-infused to make the professor happy. What the hell, thought Will. Let’s see what happens.

  He focused on the chair at his desk and released the spell. Within seconds, everything in the room turned a lurid shade of purple. This included Will himself. His clothes, skin, fingernails, hair, all of it had gone purple. “Oh, shit,” he exclaimed. He began to hyperventilate before remembering that the color change was temporary. What if I had used the permanent version? The consequence of that was too terrible to think about.

  Even the book on his bunk, still hidden under his pillow, had turned the color of a ripe plum. Will opened it and thumbed through the pages. There was no writing to be seen. Every page was a perfectly uniform shade of nausea-inducing purple. He could only hope that when the spell wore off the writing would again be visible.

  “I wonder how long that will be?” muttered Will. “Did he say one hour, or was it two?” Then he groaned. Supper would be served in less than an hour. “I can’t go down there like this!”

  It was then that the door opened, and Seth walked in, whistling a simple tune to himself. He came to a sudden stop, staring wildly around him, then at Will. “Sweet Mother Temarah! What the fuck happened?”

  Will grinned, flashing shiny, violet teeth. “Well, it’s funny you should ask.”

  Seth shivered. “Gods! Close your mouth. You look like a demon when you smile.” After a second, he added, “Actually, you look like a demon with it closed. Can you even see? Your eyes are a solid color, there’s no iris, white, or pupil.”

  “What color would you like to be?” asked Will, feeling malicious. He let the runes begin forming above his palms.

  His roommate backed out of the room at speed. “No, no, no!”

  He dismissed the spell. “Do you think you could bring me some food from the dining hall? This is going to take a while to wear off.”

  “We can’t take plates out of the dining hall.”

  “Then you’d better run!” Will raised his hands threateningly. Seth was gone in less than a second.

  Left alone, Will continued his practice, turning the room and himself every imaginable shade and hue he could imagine. While Professor Dulaney had refused to let him finish the spell, probably because he thought it would be a waste of his life, Will found it more helpful to be able to see the results of his mistakes. The amount of turyn it cost wasn’t enough to faze him in the slightest, and he absorbed enough from the environment to replace it almost as quickly as he could cast the spell.

  In the span of an hour he attempted it more than a hundred times, and by the end he finally had a good grasp of what Dulaney had been attempting to teach him. He had to keep the amount of turyn he invested in the spell minuscule to avoid it overflowing and coloring more than just his target.

  Feeling more confident, he experimented with changing the color of individual objects. He changed the glass in the window to an opaque black color. That might be helpful if I ever want to sleep during the daytime. He restored his clothing to colors that resembled what they had originally been, though he failed to match them perfectly. The professor had been right, getting a hue to match the original was incredibly difficult.

  He tried to get his own skin tone right and failed repeatedly, although at least he no longer looked like a monster. A multitude of ideas occurred to him. He could make his hair different colors or change his eyes. Or I could turn my teeth red if I wanted to scare someone. Will grinned at the thought.

  “Or I could change my clothes,” Will said aloud. The possibilities were endless.

  He grew bored after a while. He’d mastered the spell and he needed to stop if he wanted the room to return to its previous state. Sitting down at the desk, he used the limnthal to produce a loaf of bread and some butter to slather it with. Once he had finished t
hat, he lay down on his bunk and took a nap. In future he would keep the book inside the limnthal. Accidentally coloring it had made him realize how vulnerable the valuable tome was if he left it out.

  When he opened his eyes again, he realized he had slept through the night. Looking out the window, he guessed that dawn was still several hours away, so he pulled the book Aislinn had given him out from under his pillow and adjusted his eyesight until he could read it. He was relieved to see that it had returned to its former color and that the writing within was once again legible.

  Will opened it and studied the first few pages again. ‘Silent Thief’ wasn’t extremely difficult from what he could judge with his limited experience, but it was still a bit more complicated than he felt comfortable attempting. The unlocking spell was definitely out of reach for him, so he turned to the light spell. It was even simpler than the color spell he had already learned. Glancing over the page, he recited the runes to himself. There were only five required to form the construct, so he quickly assembled them and turned the spell loose.

  The world went white, and pain shot through Will’s eyes. His vision was still adapted for maximum sensitivity. He pulled his pillow over his face and dismissed the spell, though he continued to see a purple afterglow behind his lids.

  “Will? What was that?” came Seth’s tremulous voice from the bottom bunk.

  “Sorry,” he apologized. “I was just experimenting. Go back to sleep.”

  “Please don’t kill me in my sleep,” begged Seth, his voice entirely serious.

  Will chuckled. “I won’t. Don’t worry. It was just a light. I’ll be more careful.”

  “Don’t dye me purple either,” Seth pleaded. “I’d die of embarrassment if I had to go to class like that.”

  “I won’t. I promise.” Will switched to the mage light version of the spell. It was just as easy, and since Seth hadn’t awakened his sight yet, he didn’t think it would bother his roommate’s sleep.

  This time he returned his eyesight to normal first, but the spell was still blindingly bright. He would need to learn to adjust the amount of power he put into it, just as he had with the color spell. Another idea came to him then. Can I adjust my sensitivity to the light produced by turyn, the same way I can for normal light?

  He left the light burning and began experimenting with his vision. It turned out he could indeed adjust his sensitivity. Could that be useful? Will dismissed the mage light and created a single glowing rune above his palm. Then he adjusted his eyesight until it seemed to burn brightly. With practice, it might make it easier for him to see faint traces of turyn. Whether that would be useful in the future or not, he had no idea.

  Will practiced with the light spell until he had it down pat. The amount of light it provided could vary greatly, depending on how much turyn he pumped into it when it was cast. I bet Dulaney never uses more than enough to make it glow like a candle, thought Will wryly. No, scratch that, he’d save the turyn and find a candle.

  He shook his head. Arrogan was right. Modern wizardry had fallen into dark times, whether they had refined the science of it or not. What good was a wizard who wouldn’t use magic?

  Chapter 10

  His classes went smoothly over the next couple of days, though Will still felt a stab of existential dread every time he went to his Composition class. The only thing that made him feel better on that front was that Seth had promised to give him a hand writing his first essay over the weekend.

  At lunch time on Friday he encountered Rob and the two sat down to eat together, so Will brought up a topic that had been on his mind. “Do you know Dennis Spry?”

  Rob’s mouth was full, so he nodded as he chewed. After a second, he answered, “Of course. He’s the son of Reginal Spry, the earl.”

  “He invited me to go to a gathering at Malview House tonight.”

  Rob’s eyes went wide. “You’re moving up in the world!”

  “Maybe,” said Will sourly, then he recounted the circumstances of his first meeting with Dennis.

  “Wow. You must have a death wish. Why do you think he invited you after that?”

  Will shrugged. “That’s what I don’t understand.”

  Rob waved his fork in Will’s direction. “There’s only two possibilities. Either he thinks you’re important because of the king’s sponsorship, or he wants to humiliate you.”

  “I don’t trust him,” Will observed. “I heard him saying something to Janice Edelman about her writing his essay for him.”

  His friend snorted. “Nothing new there. She ought to write it. His father is the one paying her tuition.”

  “Huh?”

  Rob nodded. “She’s not the only one. There are a number of students here who have been sponsored by this or that nobleman. Most of the time it’s when they have a son or daughter here. They sponsor a commoner and then their precious children have someone they can order around. I guess it helps them adjust to having to live here without servants.”

  “That’s awful,” said Will.

  “Maybe,” replied Rob. “There’d be fewer commoners here if they didn’t, though. Not many families are wealthy enough to send their children here. On the other side, if the nobility didn’t do that, there wouldn’t be enough wizards graduating to fill all the jobs. It’s a win-win. The college gets more students and money, some poor kids get opportunities to better themselves, and the nobles get more wizards to serve them.”

  Will could imagine Arrogan’s foul response if he had heard that line, and Will felt much the same. “Don’t a lot of the graduates stay at Wurthaven?”

  “A few do,” said Rob. “Most take service with this or that lord for twenty or thirty years.”

  “Twenty or thirty years?”

  “Until they die.”

  Will gaped. “They die that young?”

  Rob nodded. “Haven’t you been listening in Spell Theory? Few wizards manage to forego using their magic enough to live a normal lifespan. Most of those that do are academics. It’s not all bad, though. Those who take service with the nobility usually die with money. It makes a big difference for their families.”

  “What about you?” asked Will. “Are you satisfied with that?”

  His friend grinned. “That’s why I’m focusing on alchemy. Who do you think helps Karlovic out on the days you aren’t there?”

  “Oh, right, you’re one of his assistants too.”

  “Yep. I work the days you don’t. Although unlike you, my lucky friend, I had to spend a year worming my way into his good graces to get the job.”

  Will returned to his original topic. “What do I do about the invitation?”

  Rob mulled it over. “If you want to make sure he dislikes you, ignore it. If you want to mend your fences, go, but be cautious.”

  He made a sour face. “Caution hasn’t really been a strong point of mine for a while now. Maybe you should spell it out for me.”

  “Go, don’t drink much, and leave early. In fact, make sure you have a good excuse to leave before you get there. That way you won’t have to make one up on the spot when things start getting ugly.” Rob grinned. “I mean if things start getting ugly.”

  “You’re really boosting my confidence,” said Will.

  “Just trying to be realistic.” Rob stopped suddenly as something occurred to him. “Oh, be sure to bring a gift. Dennis probably doesn’t expect you to, but he could embarrass you if you don’t have something.”

  “What sort of gift?”

  “Something to drink maybe,” offered Rob.

  That made Will feel better. Nothing like a solid plan of action, and he already had a gift. There were quite a few bottles of wine stored within the limnthal.

  ***

  Malview House was small compared to most of the college buildings, but as houses went, Will found it rather impressive. It was a wood-framed structure that stood three stories tall with broad windows and columns supporting two balconies above a wide porch. The house faced a green lawn, across whi
ch stood a complementary building named the Primrose House. The two buildings served to house students of noble birth who were deemed too valuable to be rubbing elbows with regular students in the dormitories.

  As a result, there were only twelve boys living in Malview, though the place easily had room for twenty. Dennis Spry and his housemates were also sorcerers, as it would have been unthinkable for people of their standing to not have been granted elementals.

  Will had never been to a party before, unless one counted the annual harvest festival in Barrowden, but he had put on his best clothes and used the color-changing spell to dye them in a bright shade of red with white accents at the collar and cuffs. It had been Rob’s idea of course, and he felt rather conspicuous wearing them.

  As he approached the front of the house, he saw that a fair collection of the party-goers were on the second-floor balcony. Whistles went up as they spied his bright clothing and one leaned over to call out to him. “You’re looking smart today, Cartwright!” The voice belonged to Chris Burnham, who Will knew from his Fencing class.

  He grinned and waved. “Thanks!”

  The front door was open, and a student he didn’t recognize greeted him, though guessing by the fellow’s clothing he was one of the resident’s sponsored commoners. Will handed the other boy the bottle of wine. Then he turned as someone’s hand descended onto his shoulder.

  “Will!” said Dennis loudly. “I hoped you would come!” He looked past Will to the bottle. “You brought wine? How thoughtful. Let’s see what it is.”

  Will didn’t detect any sign of animosity in Dennis’ voice, but he wondered what the young lordling would say if he didn’t like the wine. “It was just something I had lying around,” said Will modestly.

  Dennis took the bottle and turned it over in his hands. “A Movelli Red from Darrow,” said Dennis with surprise. “From 751? This is older than we are! You’ve outdone yourself, William.”

  Was that good? Will had no idea, but from Dennis’ expression it seemed that he had brought a decent gift. He shrugged. “I didn’t know what to bring, but I figured I couldn’t go wrong with wine at a party.”