The Archmage: Chapter Four (Patreon)

“So, let’s discuss the problems,” Draven said, laying a map down over the table. “Edward Elide owns and operates a small manor-house in Avignon, and it’s well defended.” 

“I’ve snuck past the barriers to a noble house before,” I said neutrally. 

“With their inactive defenses,” Draven said, shaking his head. “With both the old king’s death, Roark dying so recently, and the previous Elide being crippled by our lovely archmage of charms, there’s no way that Edward, or any of the archmages or archmage heirs, is going to be resting behind inactive defenses.”

“He’s right,” Tara said. “I’ve checked myself. Their barriers are on. Not full power – that would tap out their reserves within a week. But they’re not just passively scanning for intruders anymore, like Hawthorne Manor was.” 

“Fortunately for us, we have two expert abjurers with us,” Osheen said as he glanced between me and Tara. “Can you take down the wards?” 

“Wardbreaking isn’t my specialty,” I said. “I could try to overload them, though.” 

“I could,” Tara said. “But with the fact that these wards are on an active rotating and changing schedule, I’d need to be constantly working and changing them. I wouldn’t be much, if any, use in the fight.” 

I glanced at Draven, who shook his head. 

“I’m afraid getting you there discreetly will be the extent of my help,” he said. “It will draw too much suspicion if I’m not in my own manor during the attack.” 

“Then it will be just the two of us,” Osheen said, looking at me. 

“Unfortunately,” I agreed. “Alright. Apart from the wards, are there any major concerns?” 

“His wife, Alliana,” Tara said. “She’s a powerful sorceress in her own right, and she won’t take lightly to her husband trying to be killed. But she’s also crucial – we have to have her escape or drive her off, so she can report that House Byron attacked.” 

“Two on two isn’t terrible odds,” I said, and Osheen nodded his agreement. 

“We’ve faced worse,” he said. “They’re both older though, with lots of time to work on increasing their aura density. Don’t dismiss them.” 

I nodded, then we looked around. 

“Anything else?” I asked. “I know I need to get the servants out, just in case, but other than that…”

“Not that I know of,” Draven said, and Osheen shook her head. 

“I still need to prepare my wardbreaking supplies,” Tara said, “and we should make sure we each have our evidence and . We’ll leave in the morning.” 

I sent a letter to the ligature that evening, who sent it on to the servants they had in the house, and they scheduled for everyone to be out of the house at just a quarter after noon. 

The following morning, each of us armored up. I tucked my cloak on the inside of the Byron family guard clothing that Draven had provided. I left my staff at home, since that was a little too recognizable, but I kept my knives. I was known to use knives, but so was every assassin on this side of the planet, and while my enchantments on them were a bit more recognizable, they were also just modifications of fairly common spells. 

Over top of the family guard clothing, we put on loose navy and gray clothes that were ever so slightly sheer – enough to give us a layer of plausible deniability, and give us the appearance of trying to hide, while also ensuring that those who looked closely would still notice it. 

Finally, each of us rubbed hair dye in – Osheen’s red turning to black, while Tara’s gray and brown was turned platinum blonde, and I turned mine bleach blonde. A potion that Tara had gotten from Wisteria turned all of our eyes a dull, muddy brown color. 

After our preparations, it took us all of three hours to make our way back through Draven’s portal, across the empty landscape of the wandering path, and out into a small town, where Draven handed each of us a small orb of shadowy magic, with spinning runes from both demonic and dreamscape magic. 

“Those should keep you from being detected by any of their random scryings until sundown,” he said. 

“Just like you were undetectable?” I asked wryly, and Draven gave me a look, then sighed. 

“No magic is perfect, but House Elide doesn’t possess two of the top ten diviners in the country. Just don’t do anything suspicious until midday, that should give me plenty of time to establish an alibi. And lastly… Don’t fail. I’ve invested far too much in this.” 

It was hot and stuffy, walking around the town with two layers and a hidden cloak, but we had to make sure that at least a few civilians would be keen eyed enough to spot our uniforms, which should then make its way to the papers… Afterwards. 

There was a risk that they’d also report it to Edward and his wife, but that was a risk we had to take, in order to lay a good foundation. 

The three of us wandered around town, stopping to get some drinks and chat too loudly at a coffee shop, then as it got closer and closer to noon, we started moving. I activated and flared out the cloak around us. 

The manor was in the suburbs, on a three acre plot of land, and as soon as it came into view, Tara started removing chalk and lockpicking tools from her bag. 

“You can put the lockpicking tools away,” I said. “The doors will be unlocked.” 

She raised an eyebrow, but put the tools away. Once we were at the gate to the land, she stood there, hands on her hips, as she surveyed the gate, walls, and land. 

“This just has a basic detection ward,” she said. “Sloppy work. I just hope they have better work on the inside.” 

“I don’t,” Osheen said, and I nodded my agreement. 

“It hurts my professional sensibilities,” Tara said as she began to draw chalk lines over the brick pillar, then extended it over the wall. 

It took her only about ten minutes, as she flooded the runes with power she’d stored up to help activate them immediately, then she dusted her fingers off and nodded. Osheen pushed the gate open, and we walked in. I activated my assassin’s cloak, but neither Tara nor Osheen had such a luxury, instead relying on mundane stealth to keep out of sight as we crept around bushes and through hedges towards the manor. 

Three acres is a large amount of land, but it’s not so large that it takes a long time to walk to the center, even while crouched and hiding, and before long, we were at one of the doors. Tara surveyed the house and nodded. 

“Give me a few minutes,” she said, pulling out some clay, a blue stick of chalk, and a candle, then she went to work, analyzing, drawing, and shifting. She kept frowning and shaking her head. 

“What’s wrong?” I hissed under my breath. 

“They’re changing even faster than they were a few days ago,” she said. “They’ve activated new layers of security, too.” 

I cursed softly and shifted from foot to foot, waiting impatiently as Tara drew, erased, redrew, lit the candle, drew more, erased, blew out the candle, and chanted softly to herself, until. 

“Go!” she hissed. 

I opened the door and bolted in, alongside Osheen. 

And we ran right into a force wall. 

It wasn’t a ward, just an ordinary spell, so for all of Tara’s wardbreaking skill, it hadn’t been enough. I was dazed for a second before I let my cloak break the spell, but it was too late. 

“What do we have here?” a calm, older voice said. “A pair of thieves?” 

I tried to raise my knife, but Osheen’s newest contingency arch-star was faster. All he had to do was snap.

Six fire lances erupted from his hand, but before they could travel more than a few inches from his body, they were disrupted, striking coin sized plates of force that appeared right in front of them, causing the fire to flow out and risk burning Osheen, who canceled the spell. 

“How ungentlemanly,” a man who could only be Edward Elide said. “Is that any way to speak to a new archmage?” 

With a sense of horror, I flicked on my third eye, only to see that no, he hadn’t formed a fifth arch-star. He had four. 

I almost, almost opened my mouth to say that he wasn’t an archmage, but I stopped myself just in time. The number of people who could have known that was low, and I had no doubt that after all this time, my familiar bond had leaked. If nothing else, they would have noticed Draven had the same familiar, and rebuilt his arch-star. 

“Ahhh, assassins,” he said, tilting his head. “Byron heard about my ascension, I see, and wanted to head it off. Well, hats off to her. I’ve had two attacks so far, but neither were mages. I didn’t think she was stupid enough for it.”

When we said nothing, he sighed and removed his white gloves. 

“Shame. I’d hoped to at least get some good information.”

He was building a spell now, and he thrust his hand out to cast, but a flicker of my cloak shattered it. Osheen snapped and his contingency once again released streams of fire at the other mage, who’s own contingency activated to create his disks. 

It wasn’t the time for it, but I had to admit that I was fairly impressed with his work there. Creating and maintaining ten coin-sized disks that would rotate and block incoming attacks was the kind of sorcery that I had no idea how to craft. 

Luckily, I didn’t need to make it. 

I just needed to break it. 

I shattered the force shields, and Osheen’s fire lances rocketed out, but Edward suddenly flared with green light and dove between Osheen’s legs, kicking out savagely. Osheen’s defensive artifacts and armor flared, blocking the hit, and I stabbed down with a knife, but Edward’s armor spell flared to life around him. He leapt to his feet with the spryness of a man far younger, and thrust his hands out. 

Two dozen balls of force, each one only the size of a grape, appeared and started ricocheting around the hallway. An incredulous part of my brain noticed that they curved away just before they hit his walls, ceiling, or carpet, which meant… he wasn’t taking this seriously, not at all. 

I shot a paralytic spell at him, and it managed to strike, but it didn’t stop him, he simply countered it with a spell of his own, some sort of body spell. 

“Now that felt like one of Chris’ spells…” he said. 

Osheen was clearly done playing at this point, as I watched spells spiral up and down his arms, and then…

Boom!

A massive wave of fire coated the entire hall. It scorched at the walls, which began to glow orange, then blue… But not the blue of fire. It was a sky blue.

It was Aura.

The flames guttered out, and Osheen thrust his hand out, dropping an immolation spell on top of Edward Elide’s head, but before it had traveled more than a few inches from his hand, the wards closed in. 

I spun my cloak out wildly, trying to break the effect, but it wasn’t used to this ward’s magic stifling function, and my rune detecting spell wasn’t nearly fast enough. The immolation spell vanished, and Edward smiled. 

“Alright, that’s enough. It’s my turn.” 

A beam of force as thick as my entire body, dense with green light from his Aura, exploded out of his body. It slammed into me, and my ward flared around me, cracking and reforming constantly. Osheen’s own defenses strained, flickering as he fed more Aura to them. 

Then, while the beam was still bearing down on us like the wrath of an angry archmage – which I supposed he very nearly was – he began to move through the beam, the force rippling around him and parting, not touching him.

He could move through this enormous pressure, and as light began to glow around his hands, it became clear he could cast through it as well.

Oh no.