++Magician prodigies are watched more carefully now than they were back then, for the obvious reason that the world was far less fractious in the early days after my rebirth. There was less risk of infiltration, less risk of having one’s own pet genius turned to the enemy. That did not mean kidnappings such as the one I experienced were not commonplace, but the world was not yet at war with itself. This was one of the things I myself changed. ++
- From the writings of Isabel Vornholt, ‘The Great Lich’. 1,891 A.E
The first thing I noticed about the cloudscraper was how dark its interior was. Once we boarded, the whole thing was closed up and sealed, without so much as a visible seam at its entrance door. The structure was made of cold metal rather than wood, and even compared to the Garamon metallurgy I was already familiar with it seemed exquisite. No rivets or exposed edges, no creases where separate plates joined together. It was almost like the whole thing had been cast together in one piece.
After a brief few minutes to appreciate this, the vessel began to move. Lighting came on, arcane symbols etched across numerous surfaces coming to life with a dull, pale glow that seemed brighter than candlelight, but far more sterile and stable. No flickering flames, no dancing shadows, just constant illumination. I felt the vehicle shake as we accelerated, a curious weight tugging at my gut. So many new experiences all coming at once, I could not help but grin and marvel at it all.
My brother was, despite his sour mood, no less amazed, and I tried to encourage his own awe at the changes around us. He had taken on a dark mood shortly after leaving our parents’ side, and the noise of his muttering and sighing was deeply irritating to me. I almost wished I had spent more time learning how to properly comfort him, if only to spare myself the annoyance of his misery for the duration of our trip.
Fortunately, at least, that trip was not nearly as long as I might have expected. We travelled hundreds of miles, but within half an hour of our setting off I was informed that we were preparing for arrival.
I would have liked to gaze upon the Winzorth Institute, and Laugrey around it, but the sealed nature of our vehicle denied me such a look. I was able to study both from the ground, however, as the cloudscraper opened up just a few minutes later.
Beyond it, we stood in a great courtyard of impossibly smooth stone. Marble, I thought, pink and pale, almost blemishless. The yard stretched hundreds of paces in all directions, bordered by a high fence made of bright steel that practically screamed with magical energy. Even were it not for the physically glowing runes etched into its bars, I could have spotted its arcane mass from a mile away.
Runes. I had seen them twice now, and both times they seemed to produce some lingering magical effect in otherwise non-magical surfaces. I made a note to learn about those, too. Then I smiled to myself. With my current location, I would probably be learning about all magical fields whether I wanted to or not.
Agrian stuck close to me as we were led towards a huge building that seemed to crown the courtyard, its walls made of the same flawless stone as everything else, its structure reeking of history and power. Professor Bogern cheerfully strode ahead of us, pointing to one thing or another and explaining it to his new wards.
“That fountain was the first functioning water fountain in the region,” he told us.” Nearly a thousand years old you know, quite the feat of magic back in its time. Of course since then we’ve learned that it is far easier to simply store and pump water than conjure and banish it from the Old Night for such purposes.”
“Pump?” I asked, as if I had not heard the word before. I had already decided to feign more ignorance here than in my own home, with so many people used to dealing with children any oddities I showed would be far more closely observed. And I was, I had gathered, closer to the seat of power for the Gods. My enemies.
But the pumping of water was something already known to humanity during my own era, apparently just forgotten and then relearned over the centuries. I paid attention to the Professor’s prattling in case some new technique was revealed among it, but otherwise concerned myself more with studying our surroundings. The inside of the building was richly carpeted and extremely warm. Not simply heated in the way of the Vornholt estate, by sporadic fireplaces and strong insulation, but actually circulating warm air to and from everywhere, like there was a different atmosphere within the structure than without. It reminded me almost of the natural warmth of my own homeland, the air that had greeted me after my first birth all those millennia ago.
My mood was soured by that reminder, and I did my best to keep the fact hidden as we headed deeper.
Agrian was growing more awed as we went, and his tears were starting to try. I gently encouraged his curiosity by pointing out sights of particular interest, or especially pretty colours, while the Professor continued his tour. It occurred to me that there could not have been such time for each new student to receive treatment like this, there were simply too many young magicians—too many ingenious young magicians even—to put so much time into.
So we were having a red carpet rolled out for us. Again, not entirely surprising. Geniuses of magic are among the most valuable commodities in the entire world, buttering them up from an early age is simply a good investment.
“When will we begin our lessons?” I asked during a lull in the tour, not bothering to hide my genuine eagerness. I was here to learn, and I had read in my father’s correspondences that he had cited Agrian’s enthusiasm as much as his talent. I was not surprised when the Professor’s face lit up with approval.
Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.
“Fond of magic, are you, my dear?” he grinned, looking at me with much the same condescension as any other adult. I buried my irritation and plastered a suitably childish grin across my face while nodding.
“The lessons will start soon, depending on a few things,” he told me. “We need to have you assessed first. Both of you, that is.”
“Doctor Brown already did that,” Agrian cut in with a scowl.
The Professor smiled with a mix of patronisation and good humour. “I am sure your instructor did his best, my boy, but we are going to be far more thorough than he will have been able to. We have to be, the Winzorth Institute accepts only the very best and brightest, and once accepted we need to know everything there is to know about you. So that we can offer you the best possible education and make the most of your talents.”
Unsurprising. I had no more questions after that, though Agrian continued belching out a few. The boy’s focus was as scattered as ever, and even the Professor seemed to be reaching some sort of limit for tolerance. I watched, fascinated to see what might happen when that limit was hit, before we finally reached our destination.
To call the room clean was not entirely correct, it was closer to…sterile. It reeked of pungent cleansing-odours, chemical treatments of the sort I had only ever seen in Doctor Brown’s most sensitive experiments. And mana, a shocking amount of mana manifesting in countless forms.
Agrian tensed as he saw it, while I felt my enthusiasm grow. Instruments I could not name were littered about, oddly shaped crystal or steel prongs, all etched with as many runes as everything else in this place seemed to be. The Professor saw our reactions, and proved quite satisfied at the sight of them.
“This place is not as scary as it looks,” he assured us. “Trust me, the assessment will be lengthy, but completely harmless. We will do the boy first.” He turned directly to me at that. “You will be given accommodation until your brother’s assessment is finished, then your turn will come.”
“Why will he go first?” I asked.
The Professor smiled good-naturedly. “Your brother is a boy, Isabel, and you are a girl. It’s the way of things.”
Of course. I had known that magicians were not entirely removed from wider Garamon society in regards to their treatment of gender and its roles in the world, and I should have seen this coming. I bit back my annoyance and let myself be ushered out of the chamber, seeing Agrian’s eyes follow me as I left. He looked terribly scared, and terribly unhappy to see me go, but there was nothing for it. Besides, the boy would have to get used to my absence sooner or later.
The room I was permitted to stay in was at least as nice as the one I enjoyed back at the Vornholt estate, and was well equipped with books. By this point I had become an exceptionally fast reader, better than the majority of scholarly adults by far. Even in this childish body, I maintained the mind of a lich, flitting through pages and consuming the information they held faster than most people could have registered. I was retaining all of it, as well.
And the books here were of far more interest to me than most. Histories, magical texts, practical accounts of past usage and theoretical speculation on the future of any given field. Even if I had just been given these texts, my educational quality would have improved immensely to what it was before. All the knowledge I would need for a long while.
Including knowledge on these new forms of magic, of course.
Conjuration, Professor Bogern’s specialty, was what I first focused on. I soon found that it was not wholly unknown to me either, I had long since dipped my toe into this field in my previous life, though the full scope of what it could do was surprising to learn. At its core, conjuration came down to drawing forth beings from other worlds, or from the Old Night, and making use of their powers.
It was similar enough to my own ventures into creating necromancy. Both forms of magic involved using external sources of mana derived from other beings, but where I drew on the vital essence and souls of the living and dead, conjuration focused on breaking down planar barriers to tap instead.
And not without limits. I read about the dangers and evils of it, of the corrupting energies found in countless worlds and how magicians that dealt with their denizens had been known to go so mad as to require immediate execution for the safety of others. That was interesting to me, but not simply for being an apparent risk.
It was interesting because, I was fairly certain, it was a lie. The books gave no explanations, nor even any speculation, about the cause of these dangers, about what made certain planes and energies so deadly and hostile, about what made it so clear that those exposed to them needed to perish. All the same, it was treated as immutable fact—as self-evidently true.
I had seen facts presented like this before, of course. In church. This certainty, paired with this refusal to explain or question, had the reek of fanaticism about it. It told me that there was much to learn by studying the topic myself, when I could do so safely.
The rest of my time was spent reading up on my own field, necromancy. I knew that it was illegalised and forbidden magic in Garamon, to the extent that I had not dared to use it since my rebirth for fear of the consequences. That, and there was little it could do that I would benefit from for a while. Reading how it was recorded, however, made me realise just how delusional the people of this world were about the field.
Had I taken the Winzorth Institute at their word, I would have been led to believe that necromancy was simultaneously the most tempting, least effective and most dangerous form of magic in history. How it could be all those things at once, they did not bother to explain.
It was one part amusing, two parts insulting, and one part promising. Public understanding of necromancy—real necromancy—was so scarce and inaccurate that I was actually suspecting, now, that I had been overly cautious about it. Doctor Brown himself would not have recognised the magic, if he was under the same impressions given by this book. I checked the cover again, then flicked through the rest of the books to try and recognise the writer’s name. It showed up rather often, and several forewords credited him as being a Professor of high esteem.
Yes, it was starting to look like my own specialty was all but unknown to this world, barring the obvious broad strokes such as reanimated corpses.
Hours passed, then hours more. I barely noticed at first, so caught up in reading, but before the day was done I had made it a sizable fraction of the way through my room’s bookshelf, and still with no sign or word of Agrian. I finally tried my door and found it locked.
An immediate shot of panic spurted through me at that, though quickly subsided. Was I a prisoner?
Yes, but this was no shocking turn of events. All children are prisoners, the idea of their freedom as something that even exists to be taken simply does not occur to most adults.
There was nothing suspicious here, I had just changed custody. With that irritating realisation sinking in, I went back to my reading and continued whittling away the time until Agrian’s assessment was finished.