Unbound: Mage's Academy I

by Finley Morrow

  "I'm not sure, I only know that it scared me and now I don't feel well," I explained.

  She suddenly gasped, "What on earth happened to your hands?"

  "I -" I stopped to look at my hands. They were fiery red and blistered. "I don't know," I whispered. What was happening to me?

  "They looked badly burned." She said.

  "Yeah, I burned them yesterday, but they weren't nearly this bad," I said.

  "Well, that could be what's making you feel sick. I have just the thing for it." She said.

  She took me into her room which was on the opposite end of the hallway. It was covered in potted plants of all kinds, from strange broad-leafed succulents to herbs shooting up out of the soil.

  "Wow I didn't know you had such a way with plants," I mentioned as she dug around in her desk for some gauze.

  She laughed, "Honestly it's more like the plants have a way with me." She said.

  Plucking several leaves from a large plant with white flowers, she ground up the leaves and placed them into the gauze. "Wrap this around the burns," She instructed. It helps with magical burns.

  "How could you tell the burns were magical?" I hadn't told her how I got them.

  "After a while, you can just tell. Magic has a signature." She explained.

  "Thanks for this," I said as she wrapped the healing salve around my hands. The burns were puffy and the pattern of the sigil was no longer visible, but I knew it was there underneath. The cool herbs against my skin were instantly relieving. I thanked her again and turned to leave, but had a question.

  "Maeve, what was it like when you were bound?" I said. "I mean, how did you know what God wanted you?"

  "Hmm," she paused to think as she put away the medical supplies. "I guess it was a little bit like being courted?"

  I couldn't help but giggle at the old fashioned term. "In what way," I asked.

  "I guess it was like suddenly becoming aware of a presence, that wants to get to know you. Then eventually that acquaintance becomes stronger until it's more like a relationship."

  "You make the binding sound like a wedding," I replied.

  "I guess it kind of is, or it can be at least..." She said. "It really depends on the God or Goddess."

  This wasn't helping me understand. "Does it ever make you feel strange?"

  "Strange how?" She questioned.

  "Like maybe a bit frightening or ominous?" I hedged.

  "Hmm, it certainly hasn't for me, but I don't think it's impossible." She guessed. "Why, has something like that been happening to you?"

  "No, I think I just had a bad dream," I said, brushing off her concern.

  * * *

  The rest of the weekend passed uneventfully and by Monday it had grown colder and colder. I woke up that morning to a heavy snow coating the ground outside. Classes were canceled which meant that I had an extra day to catch up on homework and get some research done in the library. I pulled on a heavy owl sweater and a pair of winter boots that I found in the back of my closet. The ground wasn't that slick because the snow was fluffy and soft, falling to the ground like large cotton balls. I began to walk to the library.

  The campus looked beautiful with the snow-covered buildings. Everything was so quiet since the snow muffled all the typical noises of the day. The library, was busier today, likely because everyone was getting ready for midterms. I sat down at my work station and tried to concentrate. It was difficult to manage everything with my hands bandaged, and even though they were feeling much better, it was hard to shake the icky feeling I'd had from the morning.

  I pulled out the parchment from the ritual I had performed last night. Surely, I must have done something wrong to cause it to backfire like this. I read the instructions and sure enough, I had done everything exactly as it was written. What was the catch here? It looked to be a summoning spell, which I had never done before, but it wasn't complicated. Perhaps there was something in the library that could give me a clue. I checked the card catalog under summoning and wrote down the titles I had found. Simple Summoning for Active Spellwork, Eight Methods for Summoning Spirits, and Summoning with Ease.

  Scanning the stacks, I found the books and took them back to my workplace. Books never failed me, that had always been true. I sifted through Simple Summoning and didn't really find anything appropriate for my questions. It was mostly rubrics to use to add Summoning to spells to make them more powerful. There wasn't any section on Summoning gone wrong. I turned to Eight Methods for Summoning next. This book had more that was of interest to me.

  * * *

  Summoning is the art by which one calls upon gods and spirits to aid in one's spell work. It is a relatively simple process, but the particular method depends on what form of entity the spell caster wishes to summon. The general format, however, remains the same. The mage must provide an offering to make contact with the entity through that entity's sigil or sacred sign. Use the table of elements to determine what sort of offering should be left for a particular god or spirit.

  * * *

  I thought back to the ritual from the last night. I hadn't left an offering. I had drawn the sigil and then it had burned me, but then it dawned on me. My blood was the offering. I had an involuntary shiver run up my spine. WAs blood a typical offering. I flipped several pages to the table of elements. It had at least a hundred different categories of offerings. It scanned the column for blood. Perhaps I had actually summoned something last night. The thought frightened me. My eyes were drawn to each category but I didn't see blood listed anywhere. I found myself at the end of the list. Below the table was an asterisk. It gave a warning.

  * * *

  The use of blood offerings has been practiced for centuries but is not recommended at this time. It is primarily used in the summoning of demons and spirits of ill intent. For more information see the Spellcaster's Tome of Demonology and Dark Spirits.

  * * *

  I shuddered. Blood meant I had summoned a demon. Was that what I had dreamed of last night? A dark spirit intent on enslaving me to do its will? That would mean that the Headmaster had lied to me, or at least given me the wrong spell. I went back to the catalog to find the Tome of Demonology. Surely there would be some answers. When I found the book I grabbed it and brought it to my desk. I felt a sense of being watched, and my heart raced as I entertained paranoid ideas. I had to get out of there to clear my head.

  18

  The week of mid-terms had finally arrived. My knowledge of magic had grown so much this semester, but the funny thing about magic was that the more you learned, the more it drew you in. As I got ready for the day, feeling only somewhat confident about the material I studied, I slipped the small book about demons into my backpack. This was starting to grow serious. I'd had another nightmare again last night. It always seemed to stop right before the demon or whatever she was could get her tentacles completely wrapped around me, but I didn't want to wait and see what would happen. After the test was over, I planned to tell Ligeia and Maeve everything, about the summoning, and the headmaster, and the burns. The burns were mostly healed but still made my hands ache at the end of the day. I had been right that the scars didn't go away. I had the demon's sigil burned into my palms in white scar tissue. Eventually I would get help, but for now, I could learn as much about demons as possible.

  The test was held in the library. Each professor was there to give their own portion of the test to the students in their classes. I was early enough that I was able to sit in my regular workplace. I had Philosophy of Magic first. The first section was simple and involved the translation of runes with accompanying analysis of their symbolic meaning, but it got progressively harder. There was a section on Magical Theory and the Luminous Ether, which involved complex calculations. It was worse than my math classes back at my old school, but I think I managed alright.

  By the time I got through Philosophy of Magic and Magical Correspondences, my brain was fried. I'd had to fill in numerous completely blank tables of correspond
ences of every variety. I did okay for the most part, but I was very uncertain about my performance on Planetary and Herbal Correspondences. Between tests, I read the Tome and absorbed everything I could. It was very dry and dense. Nothing I'd ever read compared to it. It was completely obtuse. Most of what I was able to decipher was not new knowledge. Primarily it enumerated the disadvantages of being bound to a demon or working with them in general. It explicitly mentioned their ability to coerce by the threat of death. This was bad enough but it also mentioned that they could enter the bodies of their devotees and force them to do their will through possession as well. All of this was bad, but none of it helped me feel any better. I was pretty certain that I had, in fact, summoned a demon, but I wasn't yet bound to it and I wanted to keep it that way.

  I thought of Kairn. He was still missing from classes. If he was bound to a demon, could that have to do with his absence? Maybe that thing in the woods was what happened if Kairn was possessed. That seemed to make sense. I had only one exam left, Practical Thaumaturgy. There was still a bit of time left until the exam. I devoured the book cover to cover. It was small, but it weighed heavily on me. After I had finished there was still one thing that didn't make sense. There was nothing in the book about burns. In the section about signs of demons, none of the listed entities were capable of burning the summoner without being bound to them. It was always possible that there were more demons than what was listed in the book, but I pushed it out of my mind for the time being.

  Practical Thaumaturgy was becoming my best subject. This exam was practical rather than written. Each student had to create a hallow and use it to demonstrate three skills: invisibility, illusion, and a third skill of one's choice. I stood in front of Professor Malus when it was my turn.

  "Esther Crenshaw," She said. "When you are ready, please create a hallow."

  "Yes, Professor," I nodded. Since Kairn had been gone for nearly two weeks now, I had become proficient at casting hallows on my own. It was no struggle for me to create the sphere of magical working. It hovered in front of me like a bubble.

  "Excellent, Esther." She said, placing a chair in front of me. "Now, please use your hallow to make this chair invisible."

  I took a deep breath and began to wrap my hallow around the chair, molding it as seamlessly as I could to the object before me. Slowly the chair began to disappear from view. I completed the invisibility spell and Professor Malus made a few notes.

  "Next, is the spell of illusion," She explained. "You will need to disguise yourself in any way that you choose, but I must not be able to recognize it is you."

  This was a more difficult skill because with invisibility you could simply make an object disappear completely. With illusion, the object still had to be visible, but not recognizable. I decided to make myself look like Professor Malus. I had been looking at her throughout the test so it should be easy enough to maintain her appearance. I cast the hallow and stepped inside. It always reminded me of the first time I had entered a hallow and seen Kairn. I wrapped it around me like a thick blanket and tried to imbue it with the image of Professor Malus. She clicked her tongue in response to my illusion, but the glint in her eye told me that she found it amusing. I held the illusion until she told me it had been long enough.

  Then for the final test, I was required to perform a magical working of my own choice. In Philosophy of Magic, we had been studying the theory of the Hallow. I learned that Hallows existed outside of time and space on the plane of the Luminous. The magical working I had chosen to perform was my own creation that was based on this theory. I was going to enter a hallow and then cause myself to reappear at a different location. This was difficult and I'd only been able to do it completely successfully twice. However, it was all I had practiced, so I was committed to it. I cast the hallow, entered it, and began the process of moving to a different location. I was planning to transport myself to right behind Professor Malus. The execution of this spell was tricky, however. To have the hallow move you to a different location you had to make yourself forget where you were before and only visualize where you wanted to be. It was like closing your eyes and having to lose all spatial awareness. It was dizzying but exhilarating. I put all my focus on the spot behind the professor. Then the only thing left to do was believe that it would work. I walked out of the hallow and bumped into the professor.

  "Esther!" She shouted as she turned to face me. I smiled and moved back to stand in front of her.

  "That was extraordinarily dangerous," She warned. "There are so many ways that what you just did could go wrong..." I waited for her to finish chastising me. "But it was well executed so I will award you full points. Just don't do that again."

  I felt the bubbling pride of her rarely given praise, but I also felt chagrined. I hadn't known there was danger in it.

  "Thank you, Professor," I replied soberly.

  With that, my first semester at the Mage's Academy was over. I headed back to the dining hall but felt a hand on my shoulder. It was the headmaster behind me. He clapped me on the back and said, "Ah Esther, I've been looking for you?"

  "You have?" I nearly spluttered.

  "Yes, I heard you did excellent on your exams by the way." He winked.

  "Oh thanks," I said, trying to put on a calm face.

  "In any case, I wanted to check in with you about the ritual I gave you to perform. Have you had a chance to do it yet?"

  "Um Not yet," I said, stowing my hands in my coat pockets. "I was busy studying for Midterms," I explained trying to cover up my awkwardness around the subject.

  "Of course, All in good time," he sighed. "but I will expect to hear back from you about it by the beginning of next semester." He said, his eyes glinting darker.

  "Yes sir," I said, not breaking eye contact with him. The snow was starting to soak into my clothes and I felt myself shiver.

  "I'll see you soon Esther," He said. I felt his words wrap around me and I was left with the same revolting feeling as the demon in my dreams.

  19

  The time had come to tell Ligeia what was going on. I found her in the dining hall and brought her back to Halewick so I could explain everything. However before I could say anything, Ligeia had her own request.

  "Esther, I need your help with something." She said seriously.

  "Sure, anything," I said.

  "You shouldn't say anything if you don't mean it," She pressed. I wasn't sure what she was getting at but it sounded intense.

  "Okay, well what is it that you need help with?" I asked. "Are you in some kind of trouble?"

  "No it's nothing like that," She said. "It's actually... I need help with a sacrifice my God has asked of me, a quest of sorts,” She exhaled.

  "A god quest?" I knew that the gods asked things of their followers, but I'd never actually known any of the details.

  "Yeah, I have to do something a little bit crazy." She explained.

  "What is it?" I said, "I can handle the truth."

  "I have to sneak into the Headmasters office and steal a book." She said. I felt my jaw hanging open.

  "You're absolutely sure that's what you have to do," I asked. That seemed dangerous and excessive. She could get kicked out of school if she was caught, but at this point, I had my own reasons to want to break into the headmaster's office. He had tried to get me to summon a demon and I deserved to know why.

  "Yes, I have to do it." She said. "And I need your help. Someone has to be a lookout for me, to make sure I don't get caught."

  "I'll do it," I said. She looked surprised that I had agreed so fast. "When do we have to do this?" I asked.

  "Tonight." She replied.

  "Tonight?"

  "Yes. I don't have any control over the timing of this, but there must be a reason that it has to be tonight. Maybe we would fail if we did it on a different night or maybe tonight has some astrological significance. All I know is we have to break into his office and it has to be tonight." She sighed.

  "I guess we better s
tart preparing then," I said.

  "I knew you'd come through for me." She exclaimed smiling.

  We had to prepare for this carefully. Not only would we have to watch for the headmaster to make sure he'd left for the night, but we'd also have to prepare to hide in case we saw any other professors. That was not the only thing. I was almost certain that his office would be protected by some sort of enchantment. I practiced casting Hallows all afternoon as Ligeia performed some type of ritual for her god.

  * * *

  Night fell and Maeve was gone. Ligeia was relieved because Maeve would have discouraged us from going. I knew that Ligeia didn't have a choice, but I did. This might be my only chance to figure out what was going on. We walked to the building where the headmaster's office was and we snuck around back to look through his window. It was important to know whether he was still in the building or not. He appeared to be gone for the night already, but we still had to be careful. Most of the students were at end of the semester parties tonight and I knew that professors would be more likely to be checking the Fen tonight than an administrative building. We entered the office building and headed towards the headmaster's door. Ligeia had a bundle of herbs and she pulled them out of her pocket and began to toss them.

  "What are you doing?" I asked.

  "This combination of herbs acts as a detector of enchantment." She hissed. "It will tell me if there is a spell upon the path we are taking."

  "Okay, we'll have to make sure to gather up all the herbs afterward though," I said. I didn't know how we were going to get it all off the ground, but at least we'd know if there was a spell in our way. We crept down the hallway, and Ligeia flung the herbs toward the ground in front of us as we walked. They hovered for a moment before hitting the ground. It was quick enough that you could miss it if you weren't watching for it. We kept moving forward until Ligeia through a handful and it did something strange. Right in front of the headmaster's office, the herbs hovered before rearranging quickly into a sharp line.