Guild Mage: Apprentice-Chapter 144 - 143. Wisps Left Behind

"Now," Jurian said, "show me your progress with silent casting."

Wren drew a dagger and swiped it at Liv's neck in a single, swift motion, but Liv was ready for her, and parried with a blade of ice that formed instantly in her hand.

Once the block was made, Wren immediately withdrew her dagger and sheathed it.

Liv, on the other hand, presented her conjured sword for inspection.

"You'll forgive me if I don't touch that," Archmagus Jurian remarked.

"I have no desire to get my finger stuck to it this morning."

"It's made of adamant ice," Liv told him.

"Strong as steel."

She hesitated for just a moment, but if she couldn't trust Jurian to guide her, whatever time she had as a journeyman would be wasted before it even began.

"Archmagus Loredan told me to focus on only one silent spell at a time, but I managed to pull off a different incantation in the Tidal Rift, against Karis - and one in the Well of Bones.

I've never pulled it off with a word other than Cel, though," she admitted.

"That should be your next step, then," Jurian told her.

"I want you to begin practicing a silent mana shield, using Aiveh to form it instantly.

I want you to be able to catch a crossbow bolt coming for your heart, or a lance of fire from that old man fighting for Ractia.

Feel free to go to one of the armed combat classes and present yourself for target practice."

"I can do that," Liv said.

She'd thought that without scheduled classes, there would be more time in the day, but she already had a list of things to do: letters to write, Thora to send off, wands to enchant if her plans for her students came off the way she wanted, and now drilling with a new silent spell.

She wanted to get to training her Authority with Celestria Ward, as well - which would mean trading tutoring in silent casting back to the other girl.

"That you can do without my direct supervision," Jurian said.

"The next piece, you can't.

One of the things we teach journeymen – those who remain at the college, anyway – is how to use ambient mana when casting your spells."

"You mean the mana all around us?" Liv asked.

Jurian nodded.

"In most parts of the kingdom, as you know, there isn't much.

Go into a shoal, and you can feel the difference.

When an eruption happens, wild mana spills out of a rift into the surrounding area.

Using that kind of wild mana - or the mana straight from a rift - is dangerous.

It's difficult to control safely, and it leads to a great risk of mana sickness.

However, the mana that has settled and calmed in the world around us is much more safe.

It naturally seeps into a mage over time, which is why we wake up from a night's rest with more mana than we were holding when we went to sleep.

When you've learned the trick of it, it's usually safe to use this level of ambient mana."

"You know," Wren commented, "I was wondering how you and Aariv went back and forth for so long."

"There is a lot of ambient mana in the bay area," Jurian confirmed, nodding.

"It seeps out from the shoals of the rift and settles.

One of the reasons we were both moving back and forth so much – you didn't see this, Liv, but Wren did – was that we were grabbing at every pocket of ambient mana.

We were each trying to take what we could, and deny a resource to our opponent."

Liv considered what she'd been told, and used the waste heat from her casting to melt away the sword she held.

"When I went to cull the rift at Bald Peak," she said, "I opened myself up to the mana there.

It was like putting your head under a waterfall and opening your mouth to try and drink."

"You'll have the opposite problem with this," Jurian said.

"Outside of a rift, there's little more than scraps to work with.

You have to actively reach out and take hold of it.

And to do that, you use your Authority."

"Of course," Liv said, groaning.

"The thing I'm terrible at."

Jurian laughed.

"Yes, Caspian told me about your training with the Ward girl.

Are they still having to tie you into a chair for it?"

"I haven't met up with her since I got back," Liv admitted.

"I'll be interested to hear the results," Jurian said.

"You went through two crises in quick succession, and that is the sort of thing that tends to push people's limits.

On the other hand, your family's word is not one that requires strong Authority.

In some ways it's an advantage, but at the same time it means people like Miss Ward have been training for years to master something you've barely started.

In any event, let me talk you through the technique.

Close your eyes and use your breathing to center yourself."

That, at least, was familiar.

Liv sat up straight in the stands, took a deep breath, and held it.

She shut her eyes, shifting her attention from what she saw to her other senses: the play of the sea breeze in her hair, the warmth of the sun on her skin, the sounds of bustling activity drifting up from town, the neighing of the horses stabled across the other side of the road.

It reminded her that she hadn't seen Steria the entire time she'd been away, and she owed the mare a visit.

"Good," Jurian said, his voice low and even.

"Start by feeling the mana in your ring.

You've got a mana-stone pommel in your wand, too, don't you?

Feel that."

Liv nodded, but did not speak.

She was always aware, on some level, of the magic stored in her ring, in her wand.

It was something she counted on, a source of power kept close at hand in the event of need.

When Liv knew they were empty, she found she couldn't really relax until she'd filled her reserves again.

"I can feel them," she said.

"Now feel my ring," Jurian told her.

"Just a bit further away.

Can you find it?"

Liv nodded, and then started.

"Are you kidding me?" she asked.

"What?" Wren's voice came from her other side.

"Your staff is hollow," Liv practically accused Jurian.

"Inside the driftwood is a core of mana stone?

How much does it hold, anyway?"

Jurian laughed.

"Good.

Most of my journeymen don't sense that right away.

Eight rings, by the way.

A modification I made after the Day of Blood."

"I'm surprised he hasn't put stone toes in his boots," Wren joked.

"Well, if you can sense that," Jurian said, "you should be able to feel the wisps of mana around the field.

There's quite a bit of waste lingering around from what our careless students threw about earlier.

Focus on one."

Liv swallowed, and felt out around her.

It reminded her of when she'd had Aluth imprinted, or when she'd absorbed the last of Costia's remaining mana at the bottom of the Well of Bones.

An expanding awareness, fragile compared to those times, but – there!

She even recognized the flavor of it.

A wisp of mana that smelt of freshly turned earth in the spring.

It brought the image of Rosamund to mind.

"I have one," she said, ignoring everything else to keep track of that one wisp.

"Take hold of it firmly," Jurian said.

"And use it to cast.

Practice with a spell you're familiar with.

Always use an old friend when trying something new."

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The wisp wasn't so far away.

It was certainly, Liv thought, within the distance of where she'd conjured frozen shards in the past.

""Celet'co Scelis'o'Mae," she whispered, and shaped her intent to form the shard of ice right where the wisp hung above the packed earth of the training ground.

She opened her eyes for just long enough to choose a straw target, and watched as the spell coalesced.

The wisp of Rosamund's leftover mana flowed into Liv's spell like mana into a waystone, crystalizing into a jagged shard of ice, which was then flung forward into the training target.

She hadn't shaped it into a needle, speeded the casting, formed it of adamant ice, or used any other more advanced technique.

Only the very first spell Jurian had ever taught her, all those years ago.

"Good," Jurian said.

"Though that was a bit of cheating.

You chose where you conjured the ice so that it would be right on top of the mana.

That meant you succeeded on the first try, but you also didn't have to actually move it toward you.

Next time, don't do that.

It's a neat trick when you can pull it off, but not something to ever be relied upon.

The ambient mana needs to come to you, not the other way around."

"I thought you and Aariv were running around the beach collecting pockets of mana?" Liv challenged him.

"We were moving around to get close enough that we could use our Authority to take hold," Jurian explained.

"If I push myself, I can grab mana out to a hundred feet or so.

For you, it's going to be less, at least until you develop your Authority and practice this technique."

Liv thought that over.

"How good is that old man, anyway?" she asked.

"Is he as good as you?

I talked to someone who knew him while I was in Lendh ka Dakruim, and they said he'd have at least three words of power.

Probably four."

"More isn't always better," Jurian grumbled.

"Just being imprinted with a word doesn't make you any good at using it.

Training and practice are what do that.

I took two words of power up against him and did just fine."

"Could you beat him, one on one?" Wren asked.

"Could I? Yes." Jurian said it without hesitation.

"He's old, and his body's showing it.

Caspian would annihilate him.

The other professors would lose."

"Really?" Liv asked.

Jurian nodded.

"You must have noticed that most of them aren't fighters, Liv, not like us.

Nora's a healer.

Norris tinkers in his workshop.

I wouldn't want to deal with something he'd built, but just him by himself? That's an easy fight.

Lia Every's an academic, she barely passed her combat courses.

Blackwood's a hunter, and I'd bet coin on him against any mana beast out there, but he isn't a duelist."

He paused.

"Genevieve Arundell would beat the old man, too."

"What about me?" Liv asked.

She couldn't help but want to know where she measured up in Jurian's assessment.

"You? You're like me," Jurian said, standing up.

"You enjoy it.

If you don't get yourself killed, you'll be better than I ever was.

Off you go, now.

I'll see you tonight.

I actually do have other work to do, whether you believe it or not."

He strode off up the bluff toward the courtyard and the main buildings of the campus, leaving Liv and Wren behind.

"You notice he didn't actually answer you?" Wren asked.

"I did," Liv confirmed.

☙

With no second class of the morning, and plenty of time before luncheon, Liv returned to High Hall to write letters.

She wrote to Julianne, Triss, and her mother first, because those were the easiest and required the least amount of thought.

Liv let them know that she'd been in Lendh ka Dakruim to help with a culling there, and that she'd tested up to Journeyman.

She brushed over most of the details, but she did tell them all that one of her companions had died in the rift.

She asked for news of the coronation, and for Triss to pass her congratulations on to her brother Baudwin, on his elevation to baron.

She asked them to take care of Gretta, of course, and she tied the letters all up with the recipe book from General Mishra.

It made a neat little package, which she set aside to write the letter which would be more delicate.

That took two drafts, and rather than simply crumple up her first attempt, Liv burned it in the fireplace using the spark charm.

No one could know what she'd written.

The final copy she sealed, again using her guild ring, and passed to Thora.

"We're going to walk you down to the waystone," Liv said.

She was determined that the letter would leave Coral Bay having never once been out of her sight.

Wren and Liv marched to either side of Thora the entire way down the road.

A part of Liv thought that perhaps they should have made a show of shopping, but if anyone was spying on them, the moment they went to the waystone all pretense would be ruined anyway.

Instead, she headed straight down to the beach, keeping a wary eye on the circling gulls overhead.

Surely it wasn't paranoia when any one of the birds could be a Sherard spy?

"Now remember," Liv said.

"You're to go directly to the first guard you see.

House Keria rules Al'fenthia just like the Summersetts rule Whitehill.

You tell them you're carrying a message from House Syvä, and it's to go directly to Airis Ka Reimis, or whoever is ruling the city in his absence."

"Yes, m'lady."

Thora nodded, but Liv could tell the woman was nervous.

"He's a friend," she said.

"Which means his family will be friends, as well.

You've nothing to fear, and you'll be back soon enough.

Stand on the stone."

Liv strode over to the sigil that the Elden merchant had shown her so long ago, when he'd visited Whitehill in the wake of the eruption that had crippled Baron Henry.

She reached down, touched the sigil, and activated the waystone.

As the blue glow began to build, Liv scampered back onto the beach, and turned to give Thora an encouraging smile.

The light flared, and when it passed, Liv's maid was gone.

"You think they'll do what you want?" Wren asked, as the two women turned around to walk back up the road to the college.

"If they don't, I'm going to have to try something else," Liv muttered.

"Let's hope she comes back soon, and with good news."

☙

They found Arjun, Teph, and Rosamund in Blackstone Hall, just beginning their luncheon.

Liv and Wren sat with them, though Liv didn't eat.

She'd drop by High Hall and get something from Lambert in the kitchen, rather than eat food with no mana in it.

"So you're going to be my teacher now?" Teph asked.

Liv nodded.

"I hope you're not going to make us do anything crazy," her friend added.

"I'm going to teach you how to fight with magic and win," Liv said.

"Not just wave around wands made by someone else."

Rosamund chuckled.

"So yes, something crazy.

I tested into Advanced Beasts this morning."

"Congratulations!" Liv clapped her hands together for her friend.

"What's that leave you for apprentice?"

"Guild Law and History, and Medicine," Rose said.

"Arjun's going to grill me on anatomy the next couple of evenings, and then I'll give that a shot."

"And how's it feel to be in all advanced classes, now?" Liv asked Arjun.

They'd gone directly to his homeland after he'd tested up to Apprentice.

"Magical Combat is a bit of a problem," he admitted.

"I've only just started to learn Aluth, but I don't actually want to use Cost on anyone else during a practice session."

"You should get Jurian to buy you more chickens," Wren joked, in between stuffing her face with food.

"Archmagus Jurian?" Teph teased her, wiggling her eyebrows suggestively.

"Careful, Wren.

Everyone already sees you two on the field every morning.

If you go around just using his first name, rumors will start to fly."

Wren rolled her eyes.

"He's too young for me," she grumbled.

"What're you doing with your afternoon, Liv?" Rose asked.

"Take your pick," Liv replied.

"I've got practice to do from Archmagus Jurian.

I need to catch up with Celestria Ward so we can get back to our sessions.

And –"

She paused, as a ripple of conversation passed from the entrance to the great hall, down along the center aisle.

Two men in the royal livery marched down the aisle to the high table where the professors sat, a rolled and sealed parchment in the hand of the one on the left.

Like all of the other students, Liv's eyes followed their progress until the man handed the scroll to Archmagus Loredan.

Caspian Loredan broke the seal, read for a moment, and then stood.

"As it is clear that we've caught our students' attention," he said, his voice easily filling the hall, "I suppose that I might as well announce this now.

There is a great deal of official language here," he said, raising the unfurled scroll, "but the end result is this."

All conversation in the great hall had died away, as students craned their heads to hear better, so that they wouldn't miss a word.

"King Benedict has relieved his barons of their traditional obligation of service owed.

No longer are vassals obligated to provide service forty days out of every year at the request of the monarch.

No doubt the noble heirs with us will be relieved to hear this," Caspian Loredan remarked, "though in truth barons are rarely called to service unless the kingdom is at war."

"Instead," he continued, "A duty on all foreign goods, to be collected at Lucanian ports, will fund the maintenance of a new model army, directly in service to the crown.

The duty will fund the equipment, housing, and pay of soldiers who will stand at the king's command all year round.

Thank you," the archmagus told the messengers, and resumed his seat.

No sooner had the two men in uniform left the hall, than the students broke into excited conversation.