Guild Mage: Apprentice

"It's time to wake up, m'lady."

Liv groaned, blinking her eyes open at Thora's touch on her shoulder. "I didn't intend to doze off," she admitted, sitting up on the mattress. After an odd meal of buttery flatbread, a mix of vegetables in a very spicy sauce, and something that reminded her of cream, but sour and slightly tangy, all enriched with traces of mana, she'd just closed her eyes for a moment to rest.

For a moment, the stone barracks room seemed strange and unfamiliar, like a prison cell. Arjun had returned, at some point, and was shuffling his feet nervously in the center of the room. Wren, on the other hand, looked eager to be on their way, and already had her knives, quiver of arrows, and longbow. Liv wasn't even certain what hour it was, with no windows to show the sky.

"Isabel and her group can't come up for a rest until you get down there to relieve them," Wyman said. A few hours rest didn't seem to have put the second-year student in a better mood, Liv noted. She swung her legs around, stood, and stepped out into the center of the room.

"Help me into my armor, please?" she asked Thora. The pieces of boiled and enchanted leather went on quickly and easily, fitted over Liv's dress by the maid's practiced and noble fingers. In the meanwhile, Liv called Elenda over. "Can I leave this with you?" Liv asked, reaching down to her belt to pull her wand out of its sheath. "It's too dangerous to bring something made of bone down there."

Elenda bit her lip, as if lost in thought for a moment, and then nodded her head. "Here, switch," she said. The blonde girl pulled her own driftwood wand from its sheath, and offered it to Liv, taking the bone wand in return.

"Are you certain?" Liv asked.

"You made a good point about making the best use of our resources," Elenda said. "You can pass it back to me when we come down to relieve you. And I'll give yours to Isabel for safe keeping, she can keep it up here in the room."

"That makes sense," Liv agreed. "And it's very generous of you. Thank you." She accepted the wand, running her fingers over the wood, weathered by sun and salt, worn smooth by waves. The Vædic sigils carved into the wand were familiar, all based on Aluth and used to focus mana. Like her own wand, they were inlaid with silver.

"Just go hold the line until we get there," Elenda told her, with a grin. "Anyway, I'm sure they're all exhausted by now. You'd better get going."

I intend to do more than that, Liv thought, but she decided not to say it out loud. Instead, she led the way out into the hall, where one of General Mishra's soldiers was waiting to guide them down to the gates. "Where are you at, Arjun?" Liv asked, as they walked through the halls of sandstone, all of the same construction that made up so much of Akela Kila.

"I stopped healing about a bell after you left," her friend answered. "Came down to the room, had some leftover paratha and curry, and took a nap. "I'm just about full."

"Good," Liv said. "I was worried you might have pushed yourself too far." She turned to give the dark-haired boy a smile, to show she wasn't angry with him.

Arjun shook his head. "We learn early to use our magic where it's most needed," he explained. "And that a healer is no good at all if we don't pace ourselves."

"Here's the plan," Liv said. "Arjun, if you feel comfortable, you can make one attempt with an attack using Cost, just to see whether or not it will work here. Only if you're comfortable. I don't want to cause any problems with local ideas about what's proper for your jati to do, or how that word should be used."

"In that case, best not to do that kind of experiment where anyone can see it," Arjun advised. "War is the domain of the ksatriya. There's going to be a lot of questions, at the very least, if I do something like that."

"That's fine, then," Liv said. "You hang back and heal based on your best judgement. Wren, keep anything that happens to get through from taking me by surprise. Otherwise, you can figure out between you who's handling the items we've left to absorb mana." In the back of her mind, Liv wondered whether it was even worth it for her to bother with the ponderous business of laying out pearls and mana stone, when she could simply seize the power she needed from the eruption itself. The only thing that stopped her was the memory of how close she'd come to dying after Bald Peak.

The three friends followed their guide down through the layers of stairwells, gates, and hallways, until they finally reached the battle at the third gate. Isabel, Anne and Brom were behind the lines of the ksatriya, waiting for them. All three journeymen looked exhausted after an eight hour shift, drenched in sweat, grime and crusted blood.

"How did it go?" Liv asked, as soon as they were in speaking distance.

"It's a rusting nightmare," Brom answered, first. "The dead never stop, they just keep coming. I'll give the locals this, though - they're tough as iron."

"And their words!" Anne broke in. "I've seen vefta before, but they have one that makes them stronger, as well as faster."

"Vere," Arjun said.

"That one!" Anne agreed. "If we could talk them into sharing that with the guild…"

"Focus on what we're here for," Isabel said. "Using planes and discs worked fairly well, and the stock of mana in the items you had Elenda bring down was a lifesaver. We ended up taking it in shifts."

"Show me your hands," Arjun told the three, in a voice that carried the authority of a chirurgeon long accustomed to dealing with patients. Liv wasn't surprised when all three second-years obeyed, and she also wasn't shocked to see the veins in their hands beginning to darken. "Have a guide take you to the healers," he instructed. "Then get some food and rest."

"You'll be alright down here?" Isabel asked. Liv recognized her hesitation: once you'd taken responsibility for something, it could be difficult to give it up.

"Go on up and get yourselves taken care of," Liv encouraged her. "The gate will still be here when you get back." Isabel nodded, and after Anne had passed off the small collection of pearls and mana rocks to Arjun, the three journeymen of the first shift followed the same guide who'd brought Liv and her friends down, back up into the safer levels of the fortress.

Liv drew the driftwood wand from her sheath. It wasn't familiar yet - a discordant presence in her hand, and she would rather have the one she'd designed herself. Still, better this than nothing at all. "Tell them to get ready to stand back," she said to Arjun, who immediately began shouting in the language of Lendh ka Dakruim.

An officer of some sort broke off from the second line, approached Arjun, and began arguing, pointing his hands at where the ksatriya held the horde back with shields. Liv wondered how often they rotated men: it couldn't possibly be in eight hour shifts, like the mages were using. She supposed that she'd have a chance to find out.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

"What's the difficulty?" she asked Arjun.

"He doesn't really believe that you can take them all yourself," Arjun told her.

"Fine. I'll prove it," Liv said, and stepped forward, raising her wand.

She'd had hours to contemplate exactly how to do this, and Liv had been chewing the proper spell over at the same time she'd been chewing her curry. Lightning wouldn't work down here, of course, and using the fist of ice when she'd first arrived had confirmed in her mind that she'd only be relying on Aluth for quick shields, in the event that something got too close to her. No, Liv would be relying on Cel - after all, it was what she was most comfortable with.

"Celet Aen Kveis," Liv began, striding forward until she found a place to slide between two of the spear-wielding ksatriyas in the second line. That was close enough for her to lift her wand over the first rank, the shield wall, and there she built a barrier of adamant ice, cutting them off from the skeletons and corpses piling on top of each other in a never-ending rush. She built if carefully, not concerned so much with speed as with clarity: Liv wanted to be able to see through the ice, or at least to not be completely blind.

The bloody and weary ksatriyas fell back gradually, as her barrier spread to encompass the entire stairwell, sealing the corpses below off entirely, from floor to ceiling and wall to wall. The officer from before made his way forward, and began speaking. His tone was no longer angry, but respectful.

"The – I'm not sure what the right word is," Arjun admitted. "Team leader? Something like that. He wishes to thank you for giving his men a chance to rest, and to know how long your ice will last."

"Tell him to be ready to follow me," Liv said. The borrowed wand was working well enough, and she had plenty of rings for what came next. "Celent Ai'Veh Creim! Celent'he Aiveh Svec Sekim'o'Kveis!" One incantation after another, Liv set to work. A wave of crystals grew out from the base of the wall, clustering in sprays of sharp geometric precision, pushing their way between the legs of the corpses and growing, growing, crushing bone between them and sundering decayed ligaments. Half a dozen sword-blades grew out of the outer surface of the wall, long and sharp, and they pierced chests and arms where shreds of flesh yet remained.

Liv began to spin her wand using her wrist, making the tip move in circles, and the wall she'd created responded. The circle of six blades projecting from it began to rotate, slowly at first, and then with increasing speed, scything through the corpses pressed up against the barrier like a sickle through wheat. Liv strode forward, and pushed the wall before her.

The ice, a conglomeration built of spell upon spell, forced its way deeper into the pile of corpses, crushing the risen skeletons before it. Crystals surged ahead along the ground, blades advanced and circled before the wall, and always the bulk of the ice came on, inexorable, crushing and cutting and pressing the monstrous dead back.

Behind Liv, the ksatriyas began to murmur, but she ignored them. The tip of the driftwood wand was pressed into the wall of ice, now, but she continued to circle it against the smooth surface. She was reminded of the day that Master Grenfell had tested her wall in the courtyard of Castle Whitehill, pouring a stream of fire into her ice while Liv desperately channeled mana into the wall, doing her best to keep it from melting away.

The initial castings had used thirteen rings of mana, leaving Liv with only eleven - a reserve that was draining out of her body rapidly as she used her intent to continue to move and shape the constructs of ice that she'd created. Step after step she took forward, out of the stairwell and into the hallway beyond. The rapidity with which her mana reserves were being exhausted told Liv that she wasn't going to be able to do this on her own.

"More mana!" she called back to Arjun, trusting that he was somewhere behind her with the pearls and stones and jewelry. Liv couldn't turn to look, only press forward: she was afraid that the moment she stopped, she would lose all momentum.

Arjun ran forward, coming up on her left – not her wand hand, that was good thinking. He dumped a handful of guild rings, pearls, and even the set of bracelet and rings she'd won from the princess six years before, all out into Liv's waiting palm. She reached for the mana inside, and was disappointed at what she found. Nevertheless, she took it.

Faint wisps of blue and gold rose up from the collection of objects - only three or four rings worth of mana, all told. Liv shoved the drained items back toward Arjun: they would absorb mana from the rift, slowly, on their own, but it wouldn't be enough to matter. This would just have to do.

With a wordless shout of effort, Liv pressed forward, leaning into the wall with her left shoulder, while keeping the driftwood wand connected with her elbow held high and at an awkward angle. Another step, another. The only thing that existed in her entire world was pushing forward, one stride at a time, and pressing the wall in front of her as the blades spun and the crystals ground corpses into a fine mulch.

Smears of old, thick blood, pus, and other bodily fluids coated the stone floor beneath Liv's boots, and the stench was overwhelming. She gagged on it: it filled her nose, her mouth, there was no escaping it. Liv choked and gagged, but somehow managed to keep from emptying her stomach. All that mattered was taking another step, even as her mana was nearly exhausted.

"Liv stop!" Wren shouted in her ear.

"The gate!" Arjun was repeating, and Liv almost ignored them: if she stopped now, she didn't think she would be able to get moving again. When she looked up, she found that her wall of ice had plugged the gap between the opening in the stone where gates had once hung. She could see the fastenings for the hinges in the far wall, and the wrecked, twisted metal that had once been a portcullis overhead.

With a gasp, Liv released the magic. Her body dropped, limp, and she slid down the wall onto the mess of half-dried viscera that coated the floor. She gasped for breath, heaving for clean air, but there was none to be found.

"Come along," Wren said, slipping an arm under Liv's, and hoisting her up onto her feet. "Let's get you behind the lines, now." Liv was somewhat embarrassed to find that her legs weren't quite working, and were in fact limp as overcooked green beans. Nevertheless, Wren half carried, half dragged her back down the hallway toward the stairs, between two lines of armored men whose eyes were all tracking her as she passed.

As always, when she was the center of attention, Liv had to fight the urge to hunch her soldiers and duck her head, but she decided that if she'd impressed the ksatriyas, she didn't want to wreck it now. Instead, she just let Wren maneuver her onto the bottom stair, where she managed to sit and catch her breath.

"Can you call the – what did you call him, team leader? – can you invite him over?" Liv asked Arjun, who called out to the man in armor. "Maybe we should just get his name. That might be easier."

"Harit," Arjun told her, after a few exchanged words.

"Thank you. Harit," Liv said, "that wall will last a bell at least, before it melts. Your men can rest until then, as long as you set a watch to keep an eye on it." She waited for Arjun to translate, and for the officer to nod.

"Are we at the depths yet?" Wren asked her.

Liv shook her head. "No. And we won't get there today, it seems, because I can't do that again." She glanced over to the wall, where the blurred shapes of the corpses beyond could be seen pressing and scrabbling against the other side. "While we all take a rest, perhaps Harit could tell us a bit about what we'll find past the fourth gate. And maybe we can even practice a little bit of Dakruiman."

Carefully, she slipped the driftwood wand into her sheath: the fit wasn't exactly right, but it would do. Then, she listened as Arjun began to translate Harit's words. The ksatriyas, on the other hand, did exactly as she'd suggested to their commander: they found places to sit, began to clean their weapons, to take a moment to drink from flasks, or to bandage wounds. A few of the more wounded soldiers, including one of the women who served as archers, which Liv had noted before, were helped back up the stairs for medical treatment.

"Harit says," Arjun began, pausing every so often to listen to the other man's words, "that past the final gate is a wide landing, carved into the stone around the very edge of the shaft that runs down into the earth. It runs half the circumference of the pit, and there is a crenellated wall, so that archers can shoot down. At the left end of the landing is a stair that goes down, curving along the wall of the shaft."

"How far down does it go?" Liv asked.

But when Arjun translated the question, Harjit shook his head before responding.

"He doesn't know exactly," Arjun translated. "All the way down, to where the goddess died. To the depths of the rift."

"That's where we're going to go," Liv said. "But not today. Today, let's start with pronouns."