Published at 24th of February 2024 10:32 am

Chapter 20

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Of all the things Father could do, I thought that bursting out laughing was probably the last thing Noctra expected. The governor did not look as amused, and Father’s laugh died into an awkward cough.

Next to me, Mother said through gritted teeth, “Do not antagonize him, you idiot.”

“I still don’t even know what an adept is, Lord Noctra,” he said. “Perhaps if you explain it to me, I can give you a proper answer.”

“Why are you insisting on this charade?” Noctra asked. “Sellis, the evidence is obvious. But you’re not in trouble. I simply want to put your talents to good use instead of wasting them doing field work.”

“I hardly think my time has been wasted,” Father said. “My work helps keep the village from starving.”

“Oh no, I’m not trying to belittle your efforts. I’m simply stating that we have plenty of people capable of tilling a field. They may not do it as quickly or efficiently as you, but the job will get done. But do you know how many adepts I have in my employ?”

“I don’t know what an adept is,” Father said, exasperation leaking into his tone.

This conversation needed to hurry up. I had enough mana to hold the scrying spell for another ten minutes, maybe a bit less. I had been hoping to get a look around the manor as Father walked through it, but he’d been dumped in a room and left to wait. Noctra wasn’t going out of his way to inform Father of any plans he might have either, which meant that, so far, this whole exercise had been a waste of time and mana. I hadn’t learned anything Father couldn’t have just told me when he got back.

“It’s a step below mage, someone who can work with mana well enough to cast spells without being a full mage. In this entire village, there is only one single adept, and she came with me from Derro when I first moved here.”

“You think I can cast spells?” Father asked, his eyebrows shooting up. “That’d be pretty impressive of me.”

“If you can’t, it’s only because you haven’t had a master to show you how, not because your mana controlling skills aren’t up to the task.”

“He’s actually not wrong about that,” I told Mother. “Father is ready to learn some novice level spells. I was just waiting until we ignited his core so he’d have the mana to practice with.”

Father smiled and shook his head. “While I appreciate how much confidence you have in my abilities, Lord Emeto died fifteen years ago. I promise you his spirit did not visit me from beyond the grave to give me lessons, and nobody else wanted anything to do with me for a long time. It wasn’t until a year after you arrived that I stopped being shunned in public, and there are still plenty of people who hate me for being the reason we need to tithe mana to the draw stones every night.”

Noctra picked up the emitter and held it up to Father. “How else do you explain this then?”

“The Testing Implement? I don’t know much about them, to be honest with you. All I did was touch it and send my mana in when the Collector told me to.”

I had to give it to Father. As far as I could tell, he hadn’t told a single lie so far. While I doubted he was being targeted by any sort of truth seeking spell, the possibility did exist and, if that did turn out to be the case, Father was avoiding telling an outright lie quite cleverly.

Once more I wished I’d had the resources to perform a scry that included the ability to sense mana. I’d have to question Father very carefully when he returned to see if I could learn anything. His mana sense was unrefined, but it was better than nothing.

Noctra sank back into his seat and paused to think things over. “Even if the implement is a coincidence, I’ve done some research on you, Sellis,” he said. “Your talents are too rare to be ignored. If anything, this is my fault for forgetting about you years ago. When I first got here, everything was such a mess that it took years to get caught up. I didn’t even connect you with that boy I’d made a note to look into further once I had time a decade ago when you were punished for that attack on the school teacher.

“If that hadn’t happened at the same time I was reviewing the Testing implements, I probably still would have missed it. For that, I owe you an apology. Your adult life should have been very different. Adepts are rare, and I should have organized the ritual to seek a blessing from the spirits years ago on your behalf.”

“That’s…” Father trailed off. Finally, he said, “I don’t regret my life, Lord Noctra. I wish things had turned out differently when I was a boy, that my best friend was still alive. And yes, things were bad for a few years there, but I love my wife and my children, and they love me.”

“Yes, I am aware. You love your children so much you’re willing to take a few lashes to punch out a man who treated your daughter unfairly.”

“So you agree that Cherok was out of line?” Father said.

“Of course I do,” Noctra said with a snort. “He is hiding behind a technicality to justify his behavior. That’s not to say I agree with what you did either, but I understand why you hit him.”

“Well… Let’s just put it behind us. Hopefully, Cherok will stop trying to bully children in the future.”

“Hmm, yes. That is something else I’m looking into right now, but it’s not relevant to this conversation. Sellis, I need two things from you. First, I need you to stop cheating with your tithes. Believe it or not, we really do need every bit of mana we can get. Second, I need you to seriously consider coming to work for me directly as an adept.”

“What kind of work would I be doing?”

“Very little, to begin with,” Noctra said. “I would need to teach you a few spells first, but once you’re ready, you would help ease my poor assistant’s workload. Adepts don’t generate the mana needed to cast spells, but they can use it if they get it somewhere else. You would probably start with operating the apparatus that pulls mana from the draw stones, which is an easy if somewhat boring task. From there, well, it depends where your talents lie.”

“Would it be anything dangerous?” Father asked.

“No, no, of course not. I would never ask you to go face a monster or anything like that. That’s my job.”

“What’s going on here?” Mother said. “Is Lord Noctra really just offering him a job? Why send Garrison members to drag him over there?”

I didn’t reply, but I agreed with Mother. Noctra wanted something more than what he was saying. I just wasn’t sure what. From a purely selfish perspective, it would be best for me if Father rejected the offer. I could train him far better than some mage born and raised in a land that had never had a whiff of mana in the air anyway, and the last thing I needed was people who could actually sense mana coming around before I was ready for them.

“It sounds like a great offer, Lord Noctra,” Father said. “Would it be alright if I spoke to my wife about this first, though? It isn’t something I should just rush into on my own, you know?”

Noctra sighed and said, “Are you sure? I would have thought this would be an easy decision for you.”

“If I were a single man with no children, I’d have already agreed. I’ve always loved mana. But this job, well, that’s a pretty big change. Xilaya will want to know what’s being offered before we just agree.”

“I see. Well then, if you’re sure, you’re sure.” Noctra reached down and pulled the wand free of its leg holster.

It was a simple design, just a length of polished wood capped with a metal clip that held a chip of mana crystal. I knew better than anyone that size wasn’t everything, but I had trouble imagining that tiny little fragment of crystal did all that much.

“Nema somno, diadro almus tisago,” Noctra said softly. Father jerked back, but not quickly enough to avoid being tapped by the wand.

I couldn’t see the mana, but I recognized those words. “A sleeping spell,” I said before Mother could ask. Fortunately for us, the scry spell was linked to the beacon in Father’s pocket and wasn’t affected by his physical state.

That spell told me a few things. Noctra wasn’t skilled enough to cast even basic spells without a verbal incantation to help him control his mana. The fact that he relied on a wand for such a weak spell was also telling. Finally, while that spell technically worked, it really was a roundabout and sloppy way to do it. A simple restructuring of the runes he’d named would have increased its efficiency, and three of those runes could have been replaced with a single, stronger one to lessen the mana cost significantly.

All of that told me that Noctra was not well educated and not that strong. Probably. It was possible this was a one-off spell that he was particularly bad at, and he’d show far more skill with other enchantments. It was also possible that his specialty lay in another discipline. I couldn’t underestimate the man just because he’d cast a single sloppy spell.

The door opened and a woman walked in. My first impression was that she was quite tall, though given my relative stature, that was an impression I got from just about everyone these days. She had a severe frown, a scar running down the left side of her face that just missed her eye, and short-cut brown hair.

“That could have gone better for you,” the woman said.

“Who’s that?” I asked Mother. I’d never seen her, and though I didn’t know everybody’s name, I’d thought I’d at least seen all the faces in the village.

“Iskara,” Mother said. “Lord Noctra’s assistant. She arrived with him years ago.”

That must be the other adept then. No real mana generation to speak of, but she could have a variety of spells available to her as long as she had a source of external mana to tap into. Depending on what spells she knew and how skilled she was at using them, she might end up being even more dangerous than Noctra.

“These damn peasants never do want to cooperate,” Noctra muttered.

“You’re sure he’s an adept?” Iskara asked.

“As sure as I can be about such things.”

“If you’re wrong, the cabal is going to add the mana costs to your debt. You know that, right?”

“You don’t need to tell me that, Perfidy.”

The woman’s lips curled up into a grim smile. “I do so love the old names. Don’t you, Nocturne?” She said the name with a twist.

Noctra grimaced. “Someday, I’ll earn the right to be called that back again.”

“Someday,” she agreed. “Maybe even quite soon if you’re right about him. What are you going to do?”

“Why, so you can report it all back to Sibilant?”

Iskara shrugged and smiled again.

“I’ll do some more tests before I ship him out. I don’t need another two years added to my time out here tending this backwater mana farm.”

“You’ve grown so cautious in the last few years,” Iskara said. “Be careful, or the cabal might mistake it for cowardice. That’s no way for a mage to behave.”

“Enough, Perfidy. If you’re just here to heckle me, save both of us some time and go away. Or even better, make yourself useful and send in that Garrison idiot I’ve got total subjugation over. The big one, what was his name?”

“The one with the notch missing in his ear?”

“That’s the one,” Noctra said with a nod. “I’ll have some work for him later.”

Iskara left and Noctra stared at Father’s comatose form, a pensive look on his face and his wand nervously tapping against his arm. A minute later, the door opened and a man dressed in Garrison leathers entered.

Noctra started to speak, but at that moment, my mana ran dry and the scrying spell died. Mother jerked next to me and said, “Bring it back! We need to know what they’re doing.”

“I can’t,” I said. “I’m tapped out.”

“No. No, no, no. What can we do?”

“Nothing for the moment,” I said. “That doesn’t mean we won’t do anything at all, just that I need time to prepare.”

“How much time could your father possibly have?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “I guess we’d better not waste it.”

***

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