《The Paranoid Mage's Apprentice》 Ch. 0 - Paranoia Wasnt Enough Waking up first thing in the morning is an even worse experience than usual when it''s being caused by explosions. I''m a light sleeper anyway, by training if not inclination, and years of assorted nastiness have honed my reflexes. I''m out of bed before the first blast has dissipated, fully dressed before I''ve even woken up properly, and out the door of my room before I''ve figured out what woke me. My room is on the third floor of the tower. Master Rylgen''s quarters occupy the whole fifth floor, and his study and laboratory occupy the sixth floor. His official ones, anyway. He operates the tower''s defensive measures from the seventh floor, though, so I start sprinting up the stairs at top speed, to the tune of the spellbursts peppering the wards outside. I''m in pretty good shape; Master Rylgen has certain firmly held views about physical conditioning, and I happen to like being able to outfight the average tavern bouncer. As I pass the fifth floor, I hear an even louder blast with overtones of shrieking mink, and feel more than hear one of the primary wards collapse. What in the hells is hitting us? This tower has the strongest defenses outside of the capital itself! Who could- No, how could- I sprint into the upper chamber, and all my questions are blown away by the sight displayed in the tower''s magical image projector. The tower is surrounded. By an army. I stutter incoherently for a second, trying to figure out just what''s going on. I''m seeing catapults. Actual catapults. And over there, that squad throwing hexes at the tower. They''re wearing outfits without adornment, no identifying marks, but those curses are the sort of thing you''d see from the Council''s own Spellbreakers. And the perimeter guards are thinly spread, but those mounted units roaming around the edges have to be Heshanid light cavalry, set to chase down any escapees. How in the hells did- ¡°ABEL!!¡± A roar snaps me out of my funk, and I spin to look at Master Rylgen, who''s trying to glare at the spell control board, the image projector, and me, all at the same time. He''s about to say something else, but instead snaps his gaze back to the projector and rapidly manipulates the board. A third blast rings through the chamber, and Master curses, reshuffling the defensive spells to fill in whatever new gap has been blasted into the shields. He''s sweating. I''ve never seen him this, this¡­ uncertain. He turns back to me. ¡°Abel, you-¡± ¡°Master, what in the-¡± ¡°ABEL!!!¡± I flinch. I can''t help it. If he looked worried before, he now looks enraged. I know that he''s not furious at me, but I cringe all the same. He closes his eyes for a second, which stuns me even more than his anger. Ignoring the defenses in the middle of a full-scale assault? When he opens them again, he''s calm again, at least on the outside. ¡°Abel, there is no time for explanations. I need you to go down to the sub-basement and start the dissolution spell. I will maintain the shields for as long as possible. Do you understand?¡± I blink. ¡°The dissolution? But what does-?¡± And then my words freeze in my throat. Of course. Of course. There''s really only one thing this invasion could be about. ¡°Yes, Master. I understand. I''ll-¡± I can''t help but gulp. ¡°I''ll get it done, no matter what.¡± Master Rylgen looks sad for an instant. ¡°Thank you, Abel. I wish-¡± ¡°It''s all right, sir. I understand.¡± I turn away, then stop. ¡°Master Rylgen? Thank you. For everything.¡± He says nothing. I sprint for the stairs. It''s two weeks from my eighteenth birthday. Neither one of us is going to live to see it.
I run down the stairs as fast as humanly possible. Faster, in fact; I''m using a hastening enchantment to speed myself up. And as I do, I think. All of this should have been impossible. Master Rylgen''s protections are impeccable. His defenses have defenses. There should be no way for a force of this magnitude to approach his tower without setting off a single warning spell, much less surround us like this. And even if you could do such a thing ¨C and obviously, someone has ¨C the magical defenses on this tower should be able to hold out for months. Months. Instead, they''re being torn apart in minutes. And even then, this place has multiple redundant contact channels to the Mage High Council itself. The instant an attack on this tower occurred, it should have alerted every Archmage in the country and summoned reinforcements in a matter of minutes. In short, this tower should be able to hold off any assault. But Master Rylgen''s sending me to trigger the dissolution protocols. Which means that he''s completely certain.The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation. This isn''t an illusion. This isn''t a diversion. We''ve been attacked, overwhelmed, and cut off from all support. There''s no help coming. This tower will fall. In which case, the attackers can''t be allowed to capture what lies beneath it. I charge into the ground floor''s central area and skid to a halt right in the middle of the room. I kneel, grab the amulet around my neck with my right hand, rip it from its chain, and raise it above my head. At the same time, I press my left hand on a flagstone that looks exactly the same as those around it, while speaking my passphrase aloud. The flagstones dissolve into mist, and I fall straight down into a pit. I don''t panic: this is just the next defensive layer. I scream out another three passphrases, while forming my left hand into a series of hand signs. Each phrase disarms a layer of protection, while the hand signs trigger a spell that stops my fall right before I hit the bottom of the pit. I pick myself up and run down a spiral stairway that opens at the edge of the pit, towards the secure laboratory. As I do, I whisper the commands which enable the final trap arrays. This is it; once they activate behind me, there''s no turning them off. I''m trapped in here. Not that it''ll matter for much longer. The amulet in my hand makes a clicking noise, and I feel a prick as it stabs a needle into my palm. This is good: the stairwell''s wards are keyed to recognize me and my master by our blood. If the amulet hadn''t stabbed me, I would be very dead right about now. And I can''t die yet. Not before I''ve finished my task. I finally reach the bottom of the stairway. At the bottom, the way into the lab is barred by an iron door, also heavily cursed. I asked Master Rylgen once if he thought that hexing the door was overkill on top of everything else. He slapped me upside the head and told me that past preparations were no excuse for being sloppy. I suppose he''s being proven right at the moment. Heh. The door opens onto a circular chamber, and in the middle of it, looking as beautiful and inscrutable as ever, sits the item that''s caused so much trouble. The Rift Matrix. It looks like a huge, uncut blue gemstone, just floating in the middle of the room. Once you get close enough, though, you can see the facets, impossibly carved into the inside of the gem, in an asymmetrical fashion that plays merry hell with one''s eyes. It defies both the laws of nature and magic. The source of the former Dark Lord''s power. They''re here to steal it. I''m here to destroy it. Speed won''t help me here. I cross the room to the main workbench, pick up the main research notebook and leaf through the pages. I have to be absolutely certain that I get each step exactly right, otherwise¡­ well, put it this way: the problem has never been destroying the Rift Matrix. The problem has always been in making sure that destroying it doesn''t blow up half the continent. First step. I open a chest by the wall, pull out the mana crystals stored within, and insert them into sockets around the edges of the room. The spell patterns etched into the stone beneath my feet start glowing. I hear a muffled explosion. If I can hear it all the way down here, through layers of stone, it must have been massive. Second step. I take the engraved runestones from a cabinet. Each of them represents a different type of protective spell. They have to be activated in order, if their effects are to harmonize. Once the spells come together, it''ll create the single strongest magical shield in all recorded history. It''ll only last for a few minutes, but that should be enough. We''re not ready for this. Master Rylgen planned to carry out a month of further testing and analysis before we performed this ritual. As it stands, everything could go catastrophically wrong. More so than it already has, anyway. Third step. I set the runestones into the control board, in order. I have to- Through the amulet, I feel Master Rylgen''s magical signature vanish. I- No. Continue. Fourth step. Prep the dissolution spell. I have no idea how it works, just what it does. It''ll grind the Rift Matrix down slowly, so that it''s power will be released gradually rather than all at once. The amulet blinks. They''ve found the access portal in the ground floor. Fifth step. Harmonize the shield spells, link them to the spell circle in the floor. They''ll be activated when the time is right. The amulet blinks again. They''re through the access portal. Too fast. I was afraid of that. They either have the best wardbreakers in the world, or they must have been scrying me as I passed through the defenses. Which, again, is impossible. Except here we are. There''s no disarm codes anymore for the rest of it, though. They''ll have to come through the slow, painful way. Sixth step. Trigger the Rift Matrix itself. That''s the solution Master came up with: dump all of its excess energy released by its destruction into the rift between worlds. The trick is to keep the rift open while the Matrix is being destroyed. The Matrix is warming up. A low hum fills the room. The amulet blinks. They''ve made it to the bottom of the pit. Slower, but still too fast. Who the hell are these people? Has the Mage High Council gone rogue or something? Who else has the power and know-how to- No. Focus. On what? There''s nothing to do but wait. The spell circle is charging up. The dissolution spell is ready and waiting. The Matrix is preparing itself to tear a hole in reality. Except the enemy is going to get here before the spells are ready. There''s nothing left for me to do but wait to die- No, hang on a minute. I''ve got an idea. It''s stupid and suicidal, and there''s so many things that could go wrong, but it''s worth a shot, right? In a sudden burst of energy, I run over to the door and grab a satchel that I left behind when I was bringing alchemical reagents down for testing purposes. I throw the research notebook into it, then dash over to the workbench and start stuffing loose notes into it. I have no intention of leaving anything behind for these bastards to get their hands on. And if my idea pans out, I''m going to need this information eventually. The amulet continues to let off flashes. They''re coming down through the stairs. I was worried they might try to tunnel straight through the stone, but they must not want to risk breaking the Rift Matrix. The stairs are actually safer on a grand scale; they must know that Master Rylgen would never booby-trap the Rift Matrix to self-destruct if an attack occurred. Many mages would, just so that they could take their enemies with them, but Master wouldn''t place his pride over half the continent. The list of candidates for this assault is getting shorter. I run over to the reference bookshelf and grab a few of the most important books. Then I pull out a simple firelighting wand from the alchemy table and light the remaining texts on fire. It hurts to do it (I''ve always loved books), but it has to be done. Then I turn and do the same to the workbench. The amulet flashes. I''m running out of time. I snag a few wands from a rack near the alchemy table. They''re technically non-combat wands, but some of the spells on them could rip a man in half, and the others might be useful. And one of them is going to be absolutely necessary for what comes next. The amulet flashes. They''re almost to the door. I charge over to the control board and trigger the multidimensional shield. The circle on the floor starts to glow in more colors than should be physically possible, but I can''t watch. This has to be perfect. Satchel in hand, I jump inside the boundaries of the shield. And in the instant before the shield is raised, I spin around and pull out a specific wand. A disintegration wand. Normally, I''d never be allowed to touch this, but this is an emergency. I blast the control board with the wand, and it collapses into powder just before the shield cuts off the world. I''m going to have to do the rest of this by hand. The amulet flashes ¨C crap, I left it out there. Well, I don''t need it. They''re already at the door, what else do I need to know? I slap my hand on the Rift Matrix. This should really have been done through the control board, but I don''t have a choice. I concentrate. The door is blasted off its hinges. The universe tears itself apart. This is a really stupid idea. I trigger the dissolution spell, and jump into the abyss. Ch. 1-1 - (Un)Immaculate Recounting Once upon a time, there was an archmage who loved stories. While magic was his passion, he loved to hear oral retellings of events long past, and was known among his peers to disguise himself and sneak down to the local taverns whenever a wandering minstrel passed through. Eventually, he created a new and clever spell, one that would aid people everywhere in their ability to tell stories. Just to be clear here, we''re not talking about me. Now, the spell created by this archmage (who died before I was born, by the way) was named ''The Immaculate Recounting'', presumably because the archmage liked the way it sounded. It was extremely high-caliber mental magic, enabling perfect recall and a ''stream of consciousness'' mind-state that let the user tell a story without tripping over their own tongue. As the story goes, he distributed the spell to the Collegium of Bards and waited for the accolades to come flooding in. Unfortunately for him, things didn''t work out the way he''d hoped. See, mental magic is fiddly stuff at the best of times; even when it works perfectly, the end results can be radically different from the actual goal, and this spell was a perfect example. As it turned out, the spell made it harder to tell a good story, not easier. The ''stream of consciousness'' worked perfectly until the bard had a stray thought, at which point he''d invariably go off on a tangent that was only vaguely related to the actual story. Not the best trait in a minstrel. The ''perfect recall'' trick worked too, but brought its own problems. Not only did the storytellers get the past and the present mixed up, but when the bards noticed that they couldn''t really... Flesh out the story a bit while the spell was in effect, they were displeased. In fact, it was discovered that some of the oldest tales had been changed so much by the passage of time as to be almost completely different stories. The Collegium was rather unhappy about that. In the end, the Collegium rejected the spell and made some cutting remarks about the archmage''s artistic sense. Supposedly he was quite disappointed by the whole affair, but ended up dying before he could give it a second try. Which is a shame, because his spell eventually had its day. Turns out that the ''Immaculate Recounting'' spell was a historian''s dream come true. Tales without embellishments? Outstanding! Interesting little anecdotes? Fantastic! I don''t know who first thought of using it that way, but by the time I first became an apprentice wizard, it had become the standard tool for interviewers everywhere. For whatever reason, they couldn''t get it to work right for interrogations. That''s the official story, anyway. As you may have guessed, I''m using that spell right now. See, I figured it was the right time to get my story down, before the end and all. It may not be as, well, story-like as the minstrels would have it, but the hell with them. This is the truth; let them do with it what they will. The thing is, you could argue that my story started on the day I was born, or perhaps on the day I was apprenticed to a magus, or some other point in my life. But it was there in that room under the tower that I was first alone, with no teacher or counsellor to turn to. I made my own choice, of my own will, and everything that followed has been a consequence of that choice. I would love to say that this is the story of my victory, of my triumph against all odds. I really wish it was that simple. But after everything, I don''t think I have the right to determine that. I shall leave that determination up to those who read my tale; in the meantime, let''s just call it the story of How I Didn''t Die. But I suppose that you''d be very confused about what happened to me without an explanation of what came before. After all, it''s not likely that you''ll know my world''s history, right? So let''s go back a bit and look at how things came to be the way they did.
One year ago, my master returned from the war. Everyone was celebrating. The war was over! The Dark Lord was defeated! The menfolk were finally coming home from the war! (They had implemented conscription, near the end. They just needed warm bodies, really.) I watched from a window overlooking the town square of the city of Polk as the convoy of ex-soldiers broke apart and scattered to the families waiting to greet them. Everywhere I looked, there was a family celebrating the safe return of a husband, son or father. But as more and more time went on, and more happily reunited families drifted away to their homes, the other side of the coin became more apparent.The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. The grieving widows. The bereft mothers. The little children, too young to understand, asking where their daddy was. Perhaps worse were the children old enough to understand, realising that they knew where daddy was. Or at least, where daddy wasn''t. The war had been terrible. It just made me angry, knowing the full details of how stupid and pointless it had all been. "Well?" growled Mr Beeswax, from behind me. "No, Beeswax," I responded grimly. "No marks. Not here, not today." There was a breath of silence, before a throwing knife embedded itself into the window frame next to my head. I didn''t flinch; I''d been expecting something like it. Slowly, I turned around. Mr Beeswax was the man that my master had left me with when he left to fight in the war. "You''re not ready for the battlefield," he''d said. "At least, not the kind of field I''ll be fighting on. There are other things you need to know, subtleties you need to learn, and I can''t watch over you and fight at the same time." He was right, of course, not that I was happy about it. But I''d been under his tutelage long enough to absorb some of his paranoid mindset, and I knew that I''d only be a liability in the war. Besides, I was curious about what he meant by ''subtleties''. In hindsight, I should have known better. Mr Beeswax was a professional thief. If there was such a thing as a Thieves'' Guild, he''d have been one of its masters. Incidentally, I can neither confirm or deny the existence of a Thieves'' Guild; when I asked Mr Beeswax about it, he just growled and thumped me. And in answer to the other questions I know you''re going to ask: no, his real name wasn''t Beeswax. No, he never told me his real name. And yes, he really, really insisted on being called Mister Beeswax. Hence the thrown knife. He was glaring at me, that day in Polk. I just stared back. We both understood each other well enough to know that I''d left out the word ''Mister'' on purpose as a way of expressing how serious about my statement I was, and that he''d aimed at the window frame as a way of acknowledging it. "That''s not what I was asking about," he said, eventually. "I meant Rylgen. Where is he?" "I don''t know. I haven''t seen or heard anything that might be from him," I replied. "There''s no way he''ll appear here in person, though." Mr Beeswax grunted. While his face was plain and unmemorable, he had a huge repertoire of grunts, each with its own meaning. I''d started counting and numbering them at some point, and by then, I had listed more than 30 different grunt-messages. That one had been Grunt 17, indicating Acknowledgement, Annoyance and Boredom. I responded with Grunt 4, indicating I-Don''t-Care. He let out Grunt 6, indicating Amusement, and sat up in his chair. Grabbing a wineskin half-full of whisky lying on the table next to him, he poured a measure into a tin cup and raised it in the air. He always got quality liquor, but that day, I felt no interest in having a taste. "A toast to the mighty and powerful," he snarled. "May they drink themselves to death." He knocked back the shot, and leaned back again. Yeah, Mr Beeswax knew the details of the war too. It took me a minute, but I realised that he was responding to my earlier words, in his own way. Not that he was an ethical thief, but he wouldn''t steal from the bereaved either. I let out Grunt 21, indicating Apology (a rarely-heard one). I got back Grunt 8, indicating Forget-About-It. We both waited in our own ways, me watching and him drinking. Finally, after another hour, a message arrived, in typically paranoid fashion. A bird flew down onto the windowsill and sang a little song. Normally, this would be pretty normal, except I recognised the notes as one of Master Rylgen''s identification codes. I hummed back the counter-melody. "Palpitate," said the bird in a clear voice. I heard a clattering noise and a muffled curse behind me, and couldn''t help but smirk a little. For all that he associated with wizards on occasion, Mr Beeswax wasn''t really comfortable with magic. "Sherbet," I gave the passphrase. The bird shifted colours in a sequence. I frowned. This one was a bit harder to remember, and required me to use a minor light spell to complete the sequence. Fortunately, I''d kept up practice of my basic spells in the free time Mr Beeswax had allotted me. I concentrated a little, created a small light orb, and flashed it blue-yellow-brown-green. Didn''t even bother to convert it through my Glyph. The bird twitched, and suddenly I could hear a toneless female voice in my ear. "Go to Trensilor Wood along the Capstal Trail. Once you reach the burnt tree, move according to Modus 4. Take appropriate precautions." The bird darted off the windowsill. I had no doubt that in a minute, it would self-destruct. I also had no doubt that Mr Beeswax hadn''t heard a single peep out of the bird. I turned to face him. "He''s not coming. I''ve been given instructions on where to move next." Mr Beeswax let out Grunt 13, indicating Resignation, and reached for the wineskin again. "Well, get going then." I nodded, and left. I''d spent years under his careful tutelage, learning his techniques, his methods. I''d learned how to pick a lock or pick a pocket with equal facility. I''d learned how to stalk a man in a dark alley, and how to knock him out without doing permanent damage or silence him forever with a single stab. I''d learned how to plan a robbery, and how to plan an assassination. I''d learned how to manipulate people with my words: to lie, deceive and seduce. I''d learned things most people wouldn''t dream of doing. I had a tremendous respect for Mr Beeswax, for his skills and professionalism. As strange as it might sound, I would''ve trusted him with my life, a strange sentiment for a paranoiac like myself. I guess that my master felt the same way about him; after all, Master Rylgen had entrusted Mr Beeswax with me. But gods, was I pleased to see the last of that bastard.