Spellscribed: Ascension (14 page)

He dismissed the observation. After all, he had just gone into a rampage and killed more foes in a single battle than in the last six years of his life combined. It could have been the face of a death god, thanking him for sending so many foes into his hands.

* * *

The masked figure waited until the bodyguard turned away before looking back over the battlefield. That barbarian had surprisingly keen senses for someone who had been completely exhausted. He was also resistant to the infection, a fact that was mildly distressing but not ultimately significant to their plans.

However, the man had managed to save the village, which should have been below the Spengur’s notice. With his criminal arrest impending, he had to have had his mind elsewhere. How did he know of their presence, much less their plans?

It shook its head. It was just a lucky break, that was all. They had lost several dozen of the risen dead, but it was a fraction of the full forces they were directing.

The masked figure slashed the air with a hand, cutting a dark tear into reality. It slipped through and the tear sealed, erasing any trace of its presence.

The next morning, as the suns rose over the tips of the mountains to the east, a man's scream echoed through the Spengur's temporary home. Birds took flight, startled, and several of the citizens on the road in front of the house immediately gave the house wide berth.

Inside the house, in his study with the table shoved to the far side, Endrance lay on the floor panting and bleeding slowly onto the stone beneath him. His chest heaved and his hair hung around him in sweaty clumps. His heart beat dully in his chest and the mage found it hard to stay conscious.

Do you see the problem now?
Gullin asked.

Endrance slowly shook his head.
I don't understand.
He replied.
What is wrong with me?

He was shirtless again and the source of the blood was the blackened lines of his meridians. Blood seeped from the lines across his body and he couldn't suppress the itching, aching feeling that dug its way into his flesh through those lines like they were made of ground glass.

Gullin, perched on the back of the chair similarly pushed into a corner, tilted his head at him.
Curious
. He observed.
You should be able to feel the problem quite clearly.

"I can feel the problem!" Endrance exhaled, too distracted to concentrate on sharing his thoughts with Gullin. "But I don’t know what I’m feeling or what it even means!"

Gullin fluffed his feathers, causing the crimson bird’s body to briefly flicker with a crest of candle flames.
I can only explain what I understand, but I should be able to provide a basis of conjecture.

"What?" Endrance asked. The pain had started diminishing, but it was not much comfort.

Your body and mind went through a great deal of stress in the last few days.
Gullin observed.
I could tell the moment our minds linked again. On top of the stress, you have pushed your mind too hard in the recent past.

"I did black out after binding a Succubus." Endrance admitted. The pain had faded to tolerable levels, and he labored to lever himself into a sitting position.

The binding of a creature from outside your world is very dangerous to the wizards trained in performing such acts. For you to attempt such a task on such a powerful creature as a Succubi, without that training to protect your mind, was a suicidal endeavor.

"I didn’t go into it entirely untrained." Endrance defended. "I used the knowledge I gained from defeating Kalenden to-"

You should know better than most that knowledge does not mean comprehension.
Gullin scolded, narrowing his ruby eyes at him.
Even the most learned man in the world can only do so well without the actual experience to back it up. Your mind might have been prepared, but your will and body were not even close to ready.

Endrance kept his familiar’s gaze. "I... I understand." he admitted, realizing that the bird was right. He vaguely remembered having had such discussions with his master, and even with Joven. "I’m sorry."

There is no reason to apologize to me.
Gullin replied.
It is your meridians that are overworked, and your will that is unbalanced.

Endrance held up his hands in appeasement.
"All right. All right." he said. "What do I do to fix it? Can it heal in time?"

It can heal on its own.
Gullin stated.
But it will take years. Such damage is not to be trifled with. You may have noticed that your spellcasting is erratic when you are relying on spells you have not scribed upon your body.

Endrance remembered the spell he had devised to conjure the storm sprite. It had nearly drained his entire aura to do so, but he hadn’t realized immediately that it would drain so much power. Whatever damage had been done, it made it hard for him to gauge the energy of the spell unless he was specifically focusing on it, like he had when he’d called Gullin.

"Yeah, I know what you’re talking about."

There is a method to heal it,
Gullin continued,
But it would require you to learn how to visualize your inner consciousness-

"Ah!" Endrance exclaimed, holding up a finger. "I already know how to do that. I was taught by my master when I was a child."

Gullin tilted his head in the opposite direction.
Did you?
He asked.
Very well. That will save us months of preparation. Next, you need to enter said consciousness and affect reconstruction of the damage done. Do you wish to continue?

Endrance stood, shaking his head. "How long will it take?" he asked. If the preparation would have taken months, it could take as long to fix the damage he’d done. He only had a few days left before he had to be ready to go with the men back to Ironsoul.

It will take as long as it takes.
Gullin replied.
But fortunately, it does not need to be done in a single session. You may take your time performing the repairs, so long as they are well structured.

"Repairs?"
Endrance asked.

You will have to direct the reconstruction of yourself, or else it may heal back incorrectly, like a poorly set bone healing crooked.
Gullin replied.

"Ah." Endrance stated, nodding. "I think I get it now."

Endrance held out his arm and Gullin hopped from the chair, landing neatly on his forearm. Though he gripped Endrance tightly enough to keep from slipping, his talons didn’t pierce his skin, something for which Endrance was very glad. The mage dragged the chair to the center of the room and sat on it. Gullin shifted himself up his arm until he could perch again on the back of the chair, his body along the left side of Endrance’s head.

"I’m going to begin." The mage declared, closing his eyes and focusing his mind.

It took far longer for him to achieve his concentration than before. Several times he nearly winced away from his goal, as his head started aching whenever he delved in too quickly. Never before had it hurt to enter the library of his mind, so he was unused to opposition.

"It’s difficult." He muttered, struggling to maintain his concentration.

Keep focusing
. Gullin stated.
I will alert you if you need to back out.

Endrance renewed his attempt, but approached it slowly and steadily. In a few minutes, he found himself finally within the library of his mind. He almost wished he hadn’t.

To say the ordinarily expansive library was in shambles would be an understatement. Endrance appeared near a cracked and empty reflecting pool in the center, his calm having been destroyed. Around him, the shelves were overturned, books scattered everywhere and the chamber was dimly lit. No torches, candles, lanterns, or braziers were lit and the windows in the back wall had been shattered inwards. Dark clouds roiled just on the other side of the windowsills, barely outside of his domain.

Above, the ceiling was staved in, large swatches of stone and wood simply missing. Burns seared the edges of the devastation. Whatever he had done to himself, it had used a huge amount of his power.

Endrance continued his look around. The destruction was not limited to the first floor; the second floor had also been thoroughly trashed by the damage to the library. If he didn’t know better, he’d say that an earthquake had nearly shaken the building down.

"Well this is about the most awful thing I’ve ever done to myself." He observed. "I don’t even know if I can fix everything."

As he surveyed the damage, he decided he should start by separating the things that could have gotten knocked loose. He looked over to the shelf that contained Kalenden’s knowledge. He stared, uncomprehending for several seconds.

The iron grate covered and chain locked bookshelf had been torn open. Metal bars and chain links hung at odd angles from the shelving and the books were missing.

He took a step forward to investigate closer, and a ripping growl tore through the air around him. Endrance whirled towards the source of the sound in surprise, and nearly fell on his backside when he saw it. A blood tiger stalked towards him, climbing gracefully down from a shattered bookshelf.

Endrance stumbled backwards through the empty reflecting pool. "What the hell?" he asked.

The tiger pounced, several hundred pounds of coiled muscle like bands of steel hidden under hide as strong as armor. Endrance threw himself to the side, tumbling as the tiger slid across the slick marble surface of the pool, unable to get any traction.

The wizard ran for several feet and then ducked to his right, dashing down an isle of broken shelves. The tiger was not far behind. Faster than a gazelle, the tiger closed on the mage again. He did not have the time or the ability to consider how or why he was running from a killer animal inside his own head.

"Oh shit! Oh shit! Oh shit!" he cried out as he ran. He turned another corner and panicked as he realized that he had run himself into a dead end.

The blood tiger burst around the corner snarling with bared teeth, and Endrance ran for his life. He would go over the bookshelf if he could, though he was certain the tiger would be on him before then. Endrance’s foot landed squarely on a fallen book, and the thing slid across the stone floor causing him to fall on his back just as the tiger pounced a second time.

The blood tiger crashed into a shelf and toppled it, causing several more of them to fall in a cascade. A second shelf fell on top of the first, temporarily pinning the tiger between the heavy wooden shelves. It hissed, snarled and spit as it thrashed about, trying to break free. Books fluttered up into the air as it kicked at the shelving and wriggled out from under it.

Endrance gasped for breath. The tiger was trapped, but not for long. Pulling himself to his feet, he saw the tiger finally extricate itself from the shelves. He scrambled to back up, but it was clear that the tiger would recover and be on top of him before he could get far.

At the moment it pounced at him again, a golden haired warrior stepped between them. She caught the tiger across the chest with a shield and her spear punctured its belly as she assisted its leap over their heads. The tiger crashed to the ground on the other side of the mage, bloodied.

Anna turned to Endrance, her face a mask of consternation. "About time you showed up, dear husband." She said loudly enough to be heard over the growling of the tiger. "Now if you don’t mind, we should retreat."

"Why?" he asked. "We can take it together."

"Love, I am the weakest of the echoes." she declared. "I am not sure I can even remain here much longer."

"What?" Endrance asked, and then saw the tiger take a step towards them. "Never mind! Run!"

They bolted towards the toppled shelves. Together, they leapt onto the top edge and carried on over the tops of the cascade of fallen shelves. The blood tiger powered on after them, the wound in its stomach hardly slowing it down at all.

Endrance desperately tried to focus enough to mount a defense. He was in his own mind, dammit! His head was in such a jumble; focusing seemed impossible. He had to first clear his thoughts-

He tugged on Anna’s arm.
"This way!" He shouted, leaping off the shelves and running across the open stone towards the reflecting pool. Anna shouted wordlessly as she changed direction, her shield barely rising in time to deflect a slashing claw from the blood tiger. She leapt off after the mage, her hair streaming into the air behind her as she ran.

Endrance skidded to a stop at the pool center. He held his palms out towards the surface and concentrated. Anna skidded to a stop near him, her back to the mage as she prepared to defend him without needing instructions.

The building shuddered and the stone under his feet rumbled. He concentrated harder, focusing on clearing the chaos in his mind.

The blood tiger charged, barreling towards them with lethal abandon. A roar echoed through the library and out through the shattered windows and roof as it leapt through the air at them.

Endrance blocked it out, instead imagining his reflecting pool as it once was. Clear and clean, it had been carved out of stone. He instead imagined it lined in silver, and the water was as clear as crystal.

Underneath their feet, the stone shifted, rippling outwards. As the ripple passed, silver replaced marble. The silver hit the lip of the pool and all the cracks and breaks in the pool were repaired. As water started to bubble up around the soles of his shoes, filling the pool, the tiger reached the threshold. It collided with some unseen barrier in midair; a sickening crack resounding as it crumpled to the ground, momentarily stunned.

Within a scarce few seconds, the pool was full again with clear water. The blood tiger slowly picked itself up off the stones and glared at the mage, fangs bared and body quivering with barely contained violence. Anna exhaled, turning to look at the mage.

"What was that?" She asked.

"It’s my mind." He said, still struggling to concentrate. "I will be in control." he emphasized the ‘will’ in his statement.

"I don’t know." She replied. "But how are you going to hold the blood tiger back? Your will was broken."

"My will is damaged. I do not believe it is broken." Endrance countered. "Otherwise, I would not have been able to resist at all."