Arcane Dropout

by Edmund Hughes

  “You’ll want to put your shirt back on,” said Harper.

  “Right,” said Lee. He pulled it over his head and joined her. Even though the setup was double the size of a normal sleeping bag, it still put them in close confines with one another. Both he and Harper spent their first minute inside fidgeting and trying to find a way for them to be comfortable without becoming overly comfortable.

  “What was it you wanted to tell me before?” asked Harper.

  The sun had set, and Lee could only see the outline of her silhouette in the dark. She propped her elbow up against the insulation layer underneath them, balancing her head on her hand and letting her braid fall across her neck.

  “It was nothing,” said Lee.

  He was glad he’d been interrupted. After giving it more consideration, he’d decided that it was still too dangerous to trust Harper with the truth, even though he wanted to. She might react in a manner that placed too much emphasis on his safety, out of some misguided loyalty to what his sister would have wanted for him. He could see her dismissing him as her apprentice and possibly even having him undergo a version of the Cropping before sending him back to a normal life where he wouldn’t run the risk of being offed by a random supernatural threat.

  “You’re so much more like her than you realize,” said Harper. “For as much as I know that Zoe cared for me, she always kept a few things close to her chest. A few secrets that were just hers, as though she was keeping them for the sake of protecting me.”

  “I could say the same about you,” said Lee. “Zoe was my big sister. She looked out for me, made sure that I was on the right path, told me when I was doing something wrong. Annoyed the hell out of me.”

  “Do I annoy you, Eldon?”

  “Sometimes.” Lee smiled. “I think you enjoy it, too, just like she did. But other times it’s more like…”

  “It’s more like what?”

  Harper pulled slightly closer to him in the sleeping bag and the same strange tension that had sneaked into the tent during the massage seemed to seize even more ground. He set his hand down on the small amount of space in between their bodies and felt a somewhat unwanted urge to reach out and touch her. Harper watched him, and Lee hated the fact that it was too dark for him to see her expression to get at least a hint of what she was thinking.

  The ground shook underneath them. Once, twice, three times. Lee furrowed his brow and wondered if he was imagining things. Harper reacted faster, sliding out of the sleeping bag and standing up.

  “More frost trolls,” she said. “Get your winter gear on. Now!”

  Lee snapped his body into action, pulling on his jacket and snow pants. The shaking intensified, which added a significant amount of foreboding to the situation. Harper was ready first, but she waited for him, and the two slipped out to face the oncoming threat together.

  Even if the night sky hadn’t been star-studded and clear, Lee would have easily been able to make out the danger of the monsters approaching them. There were half a dozen this time, each with the same blue-grey fur, powerful legs, and curving goat horns.

  He wasn’t entirely sure which one was the leader, but he could make a good guess. The frost troll near the front of the group was several feet taller than the others and seemed to move with more purpose, keeping its eyes oriented toward Lee and Harper and their tent.

  Strangely, the frost trolls didn’t come all the way into their small camp. They slowed to a stop with a good fifty feet from the edge. Harper reached over to Lee and squeezed his arm hard enough for him to feel her fingernails through several layers of insulated clothing.

  “Let me do the talking,” she whispered.

  “The talking?” asked Lee. “Are you sure they’re not going to just attack us, like the other one did?”

  “The tall one is the chieftain,” she said. “They usually speak small amounts of English in this part of the world. It helps them when they need to trade.”

  He nodded, though he wasn’t entirely sold on her strategy. Harper started walking forward and Lee kept pace, one hand surreptitiously feeling for his kris dagger at his waist. He’d still have to reach underneath his snow pants to get at it, and it was barely a splinter against the towering trolls, but it was better than nothing.

  “Turn your hands up,” whispered Harper.

  “What?” asked Lee.

  “It’s a show of good faith. They know what casting stances are. Turning your hands palm up is a way of demonstrating your intentions.”

  Lee did as Harper asked, walking alongside her as they closed the last few feet.

  “Good evening,” Harper called to the trolls. “I am Instructor Harper Black of Primhaven University. I was sent into your lands seeking a group of humans who died nearby. Any information about what happened to them would be welcome.”

  The tall troll let out a low rumbling noise, as though it was emerging from a state of deep consideration.

  “Kukachuk know of what you speak,” said the troll chieftain, setting a hand on its chest. “Kukachuk see these men.”

  Lee let out a low sigh, wishing he’d found a way to tell Harper what he’d discovered from the ghost. He already knew that the frost trolls weren’t responsible for the death of the survey team. He wasn’t sure if there was information pertaining to whether frost trolls lied or not, but he already began considering what he could say to back up the chieftain’s story if Harper did decide to doubt it.

  “You saw the men?” asked Harper. “Did you see what happened to them?”

  “Kukachuk and tribe stayed away,” said the troll chieftain. “Men wander aimlessly, have nothing to trade. Kukachuk find bodies later.”

  “You found the bodies?” said Harper.

  A chill ran up the back of Lee’s neck. He glanced to his right in time to see a translucent blue figure striding through the cold with slow, purposeful steps. It was the same powerful specter that had attacked Eliza, and his heart skipped a beat as he finally made the connection.

  One of the survey team hadn’t gone insane. One of them had been possessed.

  “Kukachuk let tribe eat man bodies,” said the troll chieftain. “Would have been buried, lost. Kukachuk still have heads if want.”

  Harper was frowning. Lee set a hand on her shoulder, trying to send her a desperate signal that he knew she wouldn’t understand.

  “We’ll need to see the heads,” said Harper. “I’ll be able to tell from the wounds whether the men were alive or not when you, er, found them.”

  The specter was smiling, and he waved mockingly to Lee as he began to walk into the group of trolls. He ran a hand over each of them as he walked by, causing the monsters to flinch or shiver slightly without realizing why.

  Lee saw what the specter’s intentions were, as he slowed to a stop near the most appealing target. The chieftain was more than twice the height of the specter, but such things made no difference when it came to possession.

  “It doesn’t have to be like this!” shouted Lee.

  Harper had been in the middle of saying something, and she shot him a chastening glance.

  “Listen to me,” said Lee. “Whatever it is you want, whatever it is you’re planning, we can work out an arrangement.”

  “Eldon, stop talking,” said Harper.

  “You have no knowledge of what I or my master wants,” said the specter, in an impossibly deep voice. “We seek no permission from you to take as needed.”

  The specter crouched and then leapt. His hands made contact with the troll chieftain’s stomach, and he began pulling himself forward, burrowing inside the monster like a worm easing itself into an apple.

  “No!” Lee reached for his kris dagger in the same instant the chieftain let out a confused roar. The other trolls still had their attention on him and Harper, and he almost couldn’t blame them for their misinterpretation of the situation.

  The possession of Kukachuk took only a moment. The situation almost seemed like it might calm down on its own, until the mass
ive troll turned its gaze back to Lee and Harper.

  “I tire of your presence,” said the troll, in a voice markedly more polished than its previous one. “Kill them both.”

  He waved a hand to the other trolls. They hesitated, though more out of surprise than disobedience, and then hurled themselves forward, snarling with rage.

  For once, Harper’s reaction seemed muted in comparison to Lee’s own. She only slowly adopted her casting stance, as though still convinced that she might be able to say something that could salvage the situation. Lee hurled his shoulder into her as one of the frost trolls came within inches of quite literally biting her head off.

  They both hit the snow hard, rolling to get back to their feet. Lee had his kris dagger out, but Harper was the one moving forward to draw the attention of the trolls.

  “I can’t defend us both against this many, Eldon!” she shouted. “Run!”

  Lee didn’t love the insinuation that he needed Harper to protect him, but he could already see what kind of fight it was going to be. Harper sent a salvo of fireballs blazing through the air toward the nearest three frost trolls, including the possessed Chieftain.

  A fourth troll came at her from her blind spot. Harper leapt upward, casting an air elemental spell that extended her jump with the wind, putting her safely out of reach. She readopted her elemental casting stance and continued with another spell, a blindingly bright fan of flames that singed fur and created a billowing cloud of steam from the melted snow.

  One of the trolls had escaped taking damage by the blast and almost got the drop on her. Harper’s spell shield burst into existence as it reached its hands forward to strike, staggering the monster and eliciting a howl of pain.

  She snapped a hand to the side, gripping her wrist for an instant. A spear of purple conjuration energy appeared within her grip, easily twice as long as she was tall. She hurled it at the troll with far more speed than her arm should have allowed for, easily skewering the monster through.

  Lee was in awe of Harper’s raw power. So much about her personality, her arrogance and intensity, made sense in that moment. Except it still wasn’t enough. Even the troll she’d impaled with her conjured spear was starting to get back up. Against six, she would eventually be overwhelmed. It was only a matter of time.

  He remembered what Harper had told him about each spell being a tool, and each problem being about finding the right spell for the job. He didn’t have access to any spells without Tess, but there were still actual tools available for him to use.

  He flipped over their supply sled, clearing off the remaining bags and food, and took hold of the handle. He got a small running start before leaping onto it, speeding toward the frost trolls, who happened to be slightly below him on an incline.

  One of them saw him and tried to dive and seize him from the sled. The troll’s paw missed by less than a foot, and Lee gave its wrist a quick warning stab with his dagger. He saw Harper falling onto the defensive, casting and holding her shield as two frost trolls attempted to double team her.

  Lee shifted his weight on the sled, orienting his trajectory toward him. The nearest frost troll turned at the sound of the commotion. He almost laughed as it squared its overly wide legs, inadvertently letting the sled pass right between them.

  He struck out twice, cutting not just one, but both of the frost troll’s equivalent of an Achilles tendon. The monster collapsed in a heap, giving Harper the opening she needed to assault its partners with a barrage of fireballs that melted eyes and faces.

  “Ignore the woman!” shouted the possessed chieftain. “After him!”

  The fight had been taking place on a gentle slope, one that steepened the further Lee’s sled carried him along it. He briefly considered turning to stop himself and abandon his sled to rejoin the fight, but the sound of rumbling footsteps told him that the monsters had taken the specter’s order and were giving pursuit. He grinned and put his dagger away, knowing that his distraction would be the best possible outcome for Harper. She could pick them off easily once they stopped fighting her as a group.

  He was still grinning as he saw the cracks in the snow ahead of him, and then underneath him. The front of the sled dipped into the ice as a chunk of the ground gave away completely, flipping him off. Lee hit the ground hard, feeling sharp edges cutting at his face and forehead as he rolled across the unforgiving, frozen landscape.

  He was still sliding, even as the surrounding area continued to crack and crumble. He tried to pull himself back from the way he’d come, but it was already too late. Lee’s legs fell through the insubstantial ice crust, and he only had an instant to scrape for purchase with his hands before falling completely into the hidden, frozen fissure.

  CHAPTER 42

  Lee was only dimly aware of his surroundings as he blinked his eyes open. He was at an angle and being dragged by one of his legs in the dark. His head was pounding, and he could feel ice matting his hair and eyebrows.

  The shaking of the ground underneath him told him all he needed to know. The frost trolls had won the fight against Harper, or at least managed to get away from her, and turned their attention to capturing him instead. And they were being led by their trusted Chieftain, who was currently possessed by a specter with a grudge.

  Lee was dazed to the point of still needing a few seconds to turn those facts over, before realizing the full hopelessness of his situation. He tried to lash out with his arms, but his limbs felt numb, and each movement sent stabs of pain through his abdomen.

  He kicked with his free foot, the one he wasn’t being dragged by. The troll’s hand gripping his other ankle was the size of a rugby ball, even closed into a fist as it was. Lee kicked with all the strength he could muster, fueled by a growing sense of panic. He was screwed. The specter had outplayed him, and now he was in a situation where death would be the least of his worries. Torture, possession, being eaten alive by trolls, it was hard to guess which outcome was the most likely.

  “No!” he shouted. “Let go of me! Let go!”

  He kicked again, slamming his heel into one of the troll’s massive knuckles. The monster let out an annoyed snarl, lifted Lee up by the leg, and thumped him down on the ground.

  ***

  When Lee woke up, he was in an ice cave. It wasn’t a large cave, and a nearby tunnel snaked upward, with a small point of light visible at the end marking where it exited out onto the surface. A small fire burned on the rock nearby, keeping the cave from reaching the freezing temperatures that it otherwise would have.

  The specter stood nearby, watching him with his arms folded behind his back. Lee tried to sit up, shifting his hands only to find that he’d been bound with duct tape at the wrists and ankles. Tape seemed like an odd choice, though as he considered how much trouble the massive fingers of a troll might have with rope, chains, or even a handcuff key, it made more sense.

  “Eldon,” said the specter. “I’m glad to see you’ve awoken. We have much to discuss.”

  Lee glared at the specter. He took a slow breath and threw his head forward, shifting his upper body as though he was doing a crunch in order to rise to a sitting position.

  “That’s funny,” said Lee. “I can’t seem to think of a single thing that I have to discuss with you.”

  The specter let out a low, rumbling laugh. He walked forward, moving to stand almost directly over Lee, then sat down next to him.

  “We aren’t enemies,” said the specter. “I believe you’ve misinterpreted some of my earlier actions. The fact that you’re here right now, alive, unfrozen, and comfortable, should provide at least some evidence of that.”

  “Alive, yes,” said Lee. “Unfrozen? Partially. Comfortable? You have an odd definition of that word if you think this counts. How about you take off the tape around my wrists and then I’ll hear you out?”

  The specter laughed again and shook his head. He would have struck an imposing figure had he not been a ghost. Lee supposed that to the limited subsection of people who c
ould actually see him, he probably still did.

  “You aren’t curious about why you’re still alive right now?” asked the specter. “You don’t have any questions about this?”

  “What happened to the troll chieftain?” asked Lee. “I’m surprised you’d risk leaving the body of a monster like that, given how much influence it gave you over the rest of them.”

  “Kukachuk and its tribe are asleep. Depending on what happens with you, I may or may not end up needing their services.”

  The specter pulled himself closer to Lee across the cave’s cold stone floor. He leaned back as the specter reached his hand forward, not exactly eager to feel the bone-biting chill of his ghostly touch. He had the option to pull the geist into his mystic stream, but that would give it physical presence, which might be even worse.

  “Will you keep an open mind and listen to what I have to say, Eldon?” asked the specter.

  The specter poked a finger out, pressing it briefly against, and then inside of, Lee’s temple. The pain was like an ice cream headache on steroids, and he jerked and almost fell over as he tried to pull back.

  “You can talk,” said Lee. “No promises on whether or not I’ll listen.”

  “My master isn’t evil,” said the specter. “I was sent here to watch over Primhaven. The university plays a much more important role in the machinations of the Order of Chaldea than you may have realized.”

  “You’re a spy.”

  “I’m a simple observer,” said the specter. “I have no interest in killing indiscriminately. The Order, and by proxy, Primhaven University, adheres to a philosophy that may one day pose an existential threat to the rest of the supernatural world.”

  “That’s more than a little melodramatic,” said Lee.

  “Is it? What do you expect would happen if the truth about you was revealed, Eldon? If your Head Wizard and all of your instructors discovered that not only do you not have the Potential, but you also have an ability that might enable you to expose their dirty laundry. There are specters out there, ghosts just like me, who could tell you stories about the atrocities committed by the Order of Chaldea, secrets they might not want getting out.”