Guild Mage: Apprentice-Chapter 158. Calevis kæn Iravata

Steam hissed from the joints of Calevis’ rebuilt legs, and the clicking of gears came to Liv’s ears from his movements. The half-mechanical Eld took two steps away from the cradle in which he had been hanging when Liv, Wren, Rose and Arjun entered the dim chamber. Without even waiting for Liv to speak, Wren began to drift to the left, clearly intending to flank their enemy, while Rose stepped forward and raised her sword.

“My Lady will reward me greatly when I bring her the cracked skulls of these two,” Calevis hissed in the darkness, waving one arm to indicate Wren and then Liv. “But you others are nothing to me, dead or alive. Flee now, and be grateful for my mercy.” free𝑤ebnovel.com

Liv’s eyes followed the shifting pieces of the monster’s new legs: they were clearly not complete, she realized. Compared to her memories of fighting Karis at Coral Bay, her view of Calevis’ two mechanical limbs made it clear that most of the armor plates meant to encase the internal mechanisms had not yet been attached. That left the inner workings exposed, and vulnerable: no need to crack the shell with lightning in order to get at the vulnerable innards.

With a flick of her wand and the press of the second button, Liv flung five needle-thin shards of adamant ice straight at Calevis’ bare chest. With a flex of those powerful mechanical legs, the Elden man leapt nearly as high into the air as Liv’s full height, and turned himself so that the ice shattered against the steel of his artificial thigh. When he landed, it was in a fighting stance, with one leg forward and the other back, angling his body sideways to Liv to reduce his profile.

“Pathetic,” Calevis snarled, but then Rosamund was on him, taking full advantage of the distraction Liv had provided her.

Liv could see the attack starting the moment she cast, and it was a thing of beauty. Rose moved her weight to her front foot at the same time she began her extension, lifting her back foot up completely and bringing it forward in a smooth stride that ate up the remaining distance to her target. At the same time, her rapier thrust forward to full extension in a single, explosive movement that drove her tip directly at their enemy’s heart.

Calevis’ eyes widened in surprise, but the man was clearly well trained in combat. He began moving the moment he recognized an incoming strike, but he couldn’t possibly get out of the way in time. Instead, he raised his right arm, reaching forward and throwing the limb out to the side in an attempt to deflect the thrust. He succeeded in keeping the tip of Rose’s weapon from his heart, but instead the blade sliced along the outer edge of his shoulder as Rosamund passed, drawing a line of blood across his pale skin. Rose, on the other hand, simply continued to move forward, dashing past him completely and out of reach again. When she spun to resume her stance, the dark-haired girl was breathing heavily, but her face was practically glowing with satisfaction, and she couldn’t seem to help but smile.

With a roar, Calevis swung around on her. “Æteret Fleia o’Mae,” he growled, and a jet of fire, white hot at the center but vibrant shades of red and orange, the color of sunset, at the fringes. At Liv’s side, Arjun shouted his own incantation, the two spells forming an almost musical counterpoint, and a pane of blue mana interrupted the lance of fire before it could reach Rose.

The moment Calevis’ back was turned to her, Wren dashed in from the flank, a dagger in each hand, slashing and stabbing at every exposed inch of flesh, wild hair flung back with the speed of her attack. The massive mechanical legs raised the Elden man taller than any of Liv’s friends, and Wren dissolved into blood just long enough to swarm up his back and reform sitting on his shoulders with her thighs closed about his neck to choke him.

Calevis reached back for Wren’s neck, but she dissolved into blood again, then fluttered up into the dark recesses of the machinery that filled the chamber. The Elden man was bleeding from half a dozen places, now, but when he turned so that Liv could see his face once again, it was with a savage smile.

“Ever since that Bælris brat took my legs,” Calevis growled, “I’ve been weak. Reliant on the mercy of my soldiers, unable to even walk.”

“Keri?” Liv asked. “He told me about how your house attacked the elders. How you all snuck wyrms in like cowards.” Opposite her, Rose began to circle counter-clockwise, and Liv matched her, the two of them rotating around the abomination of man and machine at their center, like the hands of a horologe.

“Inkeris, yes,” Calevis spat. Blood was running down his arm and back, even his chest, but the wounds didn’t seem to slow him - or even to pain him significantly. Liv, on the other hand, was being very careful about where and how she stepped: her leg still wasn’t back up to full strength.

“He caught me by surprise,” the cornered man ranted. “Burned half my body off with a single spell. You can’t imagine how often I’ve thought of that moment, since it happened. I’ve watched it over and over in my mind, thinking about what I could have done differently. And the only conclusion I can come to is this: he struck me by pure luck.”

Liv couldn’t help but laugh. “So Keri beat you nearly a year ago, and you’ve been obsessing over it ever since? I can’t wait to tell him.”

“He didn’t defeat me!” Calevis screamed. “He couldn’t. A brat like that, with only a single word? Against my three? It was a moment of distraction, nothing more! When I see him again, I won’t stop by taking his legs - I’ll take his arms, too. And keep the bloody mess that’s left alive for a while so I can listen to him sob.”

He raised his arms, without even speaking an incantation, and Liv added the capability to cast silent spells to her running count of her enemy’s capabilities. The blood that had dripped out of Calevis’ wounds flowed across his body, down his right arm, and into his hand, forming a handle and long lash, like a sort of great whip.

The Elden man lashed out with his new weapon, and though Rose tried to shuffle backwards, the half-healed arrow wound in her leg betrayed her, and she stumbled. The blood-whip wrapped around her sword arm, and with a powerful yank, Calevis pulled Rosamund’s arm out of its socket.

Rose screamed and dropped her sword, but the lash was still wrapped around her forearm, still straining. I have to make him let go of her, Liv realized. “Celent Ai’Veh Creim!” she shouted, sending a wave of ice crystals across the floor. They grew up around Calevis’ legs in an instant, grinding against the exposed inner components of his new limbs, and reaching up to cut his belly.

With a roar of frustration, Calevis retracted the whip, releasing Rose, who fell to the floor next to her sword, cradling her right arm against her body with her left hand. The whip cracked against the crystals, shattering them in great sprays of frozen dust and broken shards.

While the enemy was distracted, Arjun ran around him so fast that he was little more than a blur, using his enchanted boots to skirt the cluster of sharp crystals and get to where Rose was. Wren swooped down again, shifting from bat-form in midair to slam both her boots against Calevis’ back, the sudden impact causing him to stumble and nearly fall. In the blink of an eye, she was gone again, flying back up toward the ceiling of the vast chamber, lost in the shadows.

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Liv knew that she had to keep the man’s attention, to give Arjun time to heal Rosamund. Calevis himself wasn’t nearly as big as Karis had been, but those legs made it nearly impossible to knock him down. She’d been very conservative with her spells, mostly using contingent effects stored in her wand during the raid, with a few exceptions such as following Julianne’s example using Luc. Liv thought about the biggest, most ferocious animal she’d ever seen, and smiled.

“Celet Ai’Veh Retcoa,” Liv chanted, and flung the tip of her wand toward Calevis, who was just recovering his balance. A wave of ice swelled into existence, barreling forward on four massive legs even as it coalesced into a recognizable shape. By the time it reached the Elden man, Liv’s spell had grown into a massive northern bear, modelled after the ones she’d seen in the shoals of the Tomb of Celris, as large as a wagon and just as heavy.

Liv’s construct hit Calevis like an avalanche, taking him completely off his feet and carrying across the chamber in a great rush that only ended when both bodies slammed into one of the Vædic machines that filled the room. Metal twisted and tore with the impact, half burying the two in rubble, but that didn’t stop the ice-construct from pummeling Calevis with great swipes from both of its massive paws.

“Ten rings left,” Liv muttered, taking the moment to assess her own reserves. With a thought, she drained the mana from her bracelet and rings, from the pommel of her wand, and from the single pearl she wore - everything but her guild ring, which she wanted to save. Magical power filled her once again, giving her twenty-three rings of mana with which to finish the fight. If she could do this right, she wouldn’t even have to touch the mana of the rift.

A wave of fire exploded out from where Calevis was pinned by the ice-bear, hot enough to shatter the construct instantly and fill the room with billowing clouds of steam. Liv and Arjun both shouted the same incantation in tandem, and two panes of gold-veined blue mana formed, each shield breaking the oncoming wave of fire before it could burn any of them. They’d just have to trust that Wren was safe somewhere up near the ceiling of the massive room, hidden among the machinery.

When Calevis lurched forward out of the thick steam, Liv couldn’t help but smile at how battered he was. Her bear-construct had broken his nose, clawed out one eye, and left his face, arms and torso covered in blood.

“Keri took a few pieces,” she taunted him. “I’ll take the rest.” Get angry, Liv silently told the wounded man. Make mistakes.

With the roar of a wounded animal, Calevis flung his blood-lash forward at Liv. She didn’t even need to think about her reaction: without words, her blade of ice formed in her left hand, sweeping up to parry the attack just as she’d practiced over and over again with Wren.

The lash wrapped three times around Liv’s sword, but she’d been expecting that - it was the same trick he’d used to pull Rosamund’s arm out of the socket. “Celet Aiveh Sekis Ractae,” she incanted, and a wave of cold rushed out of the sword. The blood-lash froze over, just as the orbs of blood had so long ago when she fought them outside the Laughing Carp, at the Cotter Farm, and in the stockyards of Whitehill.

Pink ice spiderwebbed back along the length of the lash toward Calevis’ arm, and his whip could no longer support its own weight. The frozen blood cracked, broke, and fell to the floor between them.

“Not the first time I’ve fought a blood monster,” Liv said, meeting her enemy’s one good eye.

“Enough of this!” Calevis screamed. “I’ll end you all -”

The floor beneath his mechanical legs shattered upward in a great swelling of earth that encased the Elden man up to his hips. His arms pinwheeled wildly as he fought for balance, and Liv glanced away just long enough to see Rose crouched beside Arjun, her hand raised. It must have been the last spell she had enough mana to cast, because the dark haired girl looked like she was about to pass out.

“Costet Scelis’o'Manis!” Arjun shouted, levelling the wand of neem wood, which he’d been given by Chandrika, at Calevis.

And that was it, Liv knew. She’d seen what that spell did to chickens, to the walking dead beneath the Well of Bones, and even to a great wyrm earlier in their raid. The bones beneath Calevis’ skin began to move, little nubs and nodules shifting in a horrible way that brought back painful memories. Liv almost felt pity for the man.

“You test your Authority against mine, boy?” Calevis shouted, and then a weight crashed down on the room. Liv could feel the moment Arjun’s spell broke, and her friend cried out and fell to the ground. At the same time, the piled earth began to fall away from the Elden man’s mechanical webs: either Rose had completely run out of mana, or he’d broken her spell, as well, just like an archmage would. And if he could do that -

“Get back!” Liv screamed to her friends.

“Æterent Aiveh Yeum Ractim,” Calevis intoned, raising his right arm and making a fist.

The Elden man’s Authority caught her up, caught them all up, and with it came a feeling of heat, of the moment just before a spark catches and lights dry tinder. It felt like every time Liv had sat down opposite Celestria Ward and let herself be tied to a chair; like when Jurian had put so many Eld and humans alike to sleep on the strand at Coral Bay, and then summoned their nightmares.

In that moment, Liv truly understood why archmages were so respected by the guild: because anyone who couldn’t control their Authority, who couldn’t use it to resist Calevis’ magic, was going to die right then. She could already see it in her mind, an almost instinctual understanding of the intent of the magic that reached out to them all. She saw Arjun’s mouth wide in an endless scream as flames boiled out of his eyes, Wren falling down from the ceiling to the floor in a smoking, blackened husk - and Rosamund’s beautiful face burning from within until nothing was left.

With a wordless scream, Liv pushed back. She tasted blood in the back of her mouth, but she pushed, and pushed, and pushed, slamming her own desperation, every bit of fear she felt for her friends, and raw determination not to lose anyone else she cared about back against the burning weight of Calevis’ Authority.

Heat met cold.

Liv pressed out to encompass all of her friends, enfolding them in her own authority, and she was dimly aware of both Rose and Arjun being pressed to the ground. Wren was there suddenly, as well, unable to fly and reformed on her knees. Only Calevis had not knelt to her.

“You are no archmage,” the man gasped, throwing his own hate and fear against her in a silent contest, invisible to anyone but the two of them. She stared into his eyes, the one emerald green, the other a ruined socket of gore, and then took a step forward. It was like walking against the current of the Aspen River in full flood, but she did it. One step, and then another, pressing her Authority forward against his.

“Æteret Aiveh Fleia o’Mae!” Calevis shouted, flinging a lance of fire at Liv just like Master Grenfell had so long ago in the courtyard at Whitehill. This time, she didn’t bother to raise a wall of ice. It was no five feet of distance, but the gout of flames simply did not touch her, unable to penetrate Liv’s raw determination.

“This is how she did it, isn’t it?” Liv murmured. She could feel every bit of magic around her: the remnants of spells, the intent of the others in the room, the currents of raw mana in the rift. It wasn’t really so different from controlling panes of mana with Aluth, was it? Just a bit more weight.

“She?” Calevis growled.

“Celent’he Aiveh Svec Sekim’o’Mae,” Liv said.

Six swords of ice formed around her, hovering above and behind her shoulders, three to either side. After only the time it took to inhale, the swords shot forward.

Calevis roared an incantation, and a burning wall of fire rose in front of him. If Liv had flung frozen shards, she had no doubt the boiling heat of his magic would have melted them all away.

Instead, her swords swooped up and out like a flock of birds, buoyed by the mana in the air and controlled by Liv’s Authority combined with her intent. One went up and to the right, another down and to the left, while more circled in tight arcs to come in from behind. Every one of the six swords moved to avoid the wall of fire, and then cut in at Calevis at once.

Liv saw it in her mind, the shadow of motion before it happened: a half dozen slices or thrusts, each from a different angle, a different guard, and each with a different target. One sword took Calevis’ right hand off at the wrist, and a sword took his left. One thrust up into his kidney, and another through his ribs into his heart. One opened his throat, and the last buried itself in his remaining eye.

The wall of fire died, and the corpse of Calevis, of the House Iravata, dropped down onto the hard floor with a heavy thump, and a hollow clank of his mechanical legs.

Liv waited for a long moment, pulling her swords back to hover above the body like a swarm of bees, to make absolutely certain that he was dead. Then, finally, she eased her Authority, and the six swords fell to the floor, as well.