Published at 24th of February 2024 10:33 am

Chapter 63

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Enchantment and inscription were two disciplines that accomplished similar purposes through radically different methods. Enchantment was great in that it was much easier to practice since it didn’t require any raw materials, and that enchanted objects could be used by non-mages. The drawback was that eventually, the mana would run out unless consideration was given to recharge it with ambient mana. In that case, the enchantment needed to remain in an area of high saturation, lest it risk running dry and breaking.

In short, it wasn’t really suitable for life in Alkerist, at least not for any long-term effects I wanted to utilize. There were plenty of spells that used the principles of enchantment to create temporary effects lasting anywhere from minutes to hours. The sleep spell was an excellent example of that, and would be one of the spells I introduced to future students who were part of the Garrison despite Karad’s hesitation.

But for making long-term enchantments, I would need to structure them in such a way that I could continually pour more and more mana into them. It wasn’t impossible, but it also wasn’t practical. If I was busy doing something else, I didn’t want to have to enchant the piece all over again because I didn’t have the spare mana for it that week.

There was a reason the ward stone had runes inscribed on it. Inscriptions didn’t have that problem. They were more like a guide for mana, telling it how to act in order to produce the effect. Anybody, even a village full of non-mages with dormant cores, could give an inscribed object the requisite mana, and it would produce whatever spell it needed to, no matter how long it had been sitting there.

There were downsides, of course. For one, inscription needed a physical medium, and if the runes were damaged, the inscription no longer functioned. For another, inscribed objects tended to be big because a lot of runes were needed to describe the magic and while the size of the rune itself wasn’t relevant, they did all need to be uniform. Of course, it was harder to carve smaller runes.

When I considered how I wanted to make my shield ward, I put a lot of thought into whether I should enchant something to get me through the next few weeks or inscribe something that would last longer. I even considered doing a core invocation, which merged some principles of enchantment with inner-body magics to create effects that were a continual drain directly on my mana core, but since I still wasn’t sure what I’d miscalculated with my mana lattice, I decided to go in a different direction.

That led me to my current project. I’d used stone shape to create a flat oval of stone with a hole on one end and then transmuted it to alabaster since I was going to be making tiny, precise cuts. Alabaster was one of the easiest types of stone to work with for this kind of project, so I’d grimaced and spent more mana than it would take to form an entire wall of glass to make it.

Since I lacked all of the tools to carve runes, and because I’d never much understood mages who claimed the art of it all was relaxing and meditative, I cheated and used stone shape to add the runes that way. It was still a slow process, but I preferred it this way. Even the best stone carver could make mistakes, and I was pressed for time. Being able to smooth over imperfect runes to try again allowed me to rush the work so that I could finish it in a single day instead of spending weeks on the piece.

There was a knock on the door just as I finished my final inspection and threaded the shard of rune-carved stone with a strip of soft, supple leather. A quick glance out the window confirmed the time for me. Karad had come to collect me for his nightly round and likely talk to me about the suspicious feathered spy lurking in the area.

I paused for a second while I tried to remember if hawks had excellent hearing as well as eyesight. Everyone who knew anything about predatory birds knew their eyesight was unrivaled, so much so that some spells used to enhance vision were named after them. There was significantly less information commonly available on their hearing, but I vaguely remembered a conversation at a roadside tavern many years ago with an inebriated druid who’d rambled about several animals whose hearing was underestimated due to them being famous for other senses.

It was probably best to assume at least a human-level of natural hearing, and that wasn’t even getting into what invocations the hawk might be able to use if it truly was a mage’s familiar. I hadn’t sensed any mana coming from it, but it wasn’t inconceivable that the other mages in Noctra’s cabal could shroud their mana and extend that ability to a familiar.

Karad knocked again. I dropped the loop of leather over my head and tucked the amulet under my shirt, then walked across the hut to answer the door. “Time to do the nightly rounds?” I asked.

“And discuss that other thing,” he said with a nod.

As soon as we were away from the Arborists’ homes, he started to speak, but I cut him off. “Not here. Wait until we get out of the trees.”

I got an annoyed glance and a grunt in reply, but he followed my instructions. A few minutes later, when we were out in the open, I cast a quick scrying spell to check for animals, then said, “Shel told you about my familiar theory.”

“She did. It sounds… Well, it sounds ridiculous, if I’m being honest. But you’re the expert in magic, not me. How likely do you think it is?”

“It’s certainly possible,” I said. “It could just be a coincidence. There’s no way to know without actually capturing the bird so I can get a good look at it. If it is a familiar, I’ll be able to see the mana in it forming a bond to its mage. But if I do that and I’m right, we’re letting the mage know we’ve discovered him.”

“So we have to assume that any visible preparations we make are compromised,” Karad said.

“It gets worse, I’m afraid. There are some limits to what kinds of animals can be bonded as familiars, but I’ve seen plenty of examples of mice, rats, spiders, and the like being used. I have no proof the hawk is a familiar, but I also don’t have any proof that it’s not or that it’s the only one. Mages who specialize in familiar bonds can easily keep an entire stable of animals to use as extensions of their own magic.”

“If that’s the case, I don’t see how we can expect any sort of defense to succeed,” Karad said.

“I agree. We’re either completely fine if there are no familiars, or entirely exposed if there’s a mage out there spying on us. Answering that question is going to be my next project. If I can confirm the existence of an enemy mage, I might be able to take them out and end the threat before it reaches the village.”

“How long will it take though? They could attack tonight.”

“Or not for another week. Or not at all,” I said. “I don’t know. Maybe I’m just being paranoid. I think someone will show up eventually, if only to find out why the guy who owed them a bunch of mana stopped making his payments. That ledger indicated that Noctra was nowhere near paying off his debt. But is there a mage staring at the village through the eyes of a hawk he bonded as a familiar right now? I just don’t know. Yet.”

“That’s not a lot to go on, Gravin,” Karad said. “I’ve given you a lot of leeway despite all the crap I’m catching for letting a little kid run around doing whatever he wants. I need something better than this.”

“I’m working on it,” I told him. “Unlike you, I don’t have ten other people to take care of problems for me. For example, right now I’m walking around collecting mana when I could be building a scrying amplifier to look for the hypothetical mage lurking around out in the wastelands. If I had a subordinate, I could save myself all this time. Instead, I have four trainees who are also taking up more of my time. I can only do so much with the hours I have in my day, and until some of those trainees can pick up the slack, you’re going to have to be patient.”

The conversation fell off as we entered the village and didn’t really resume until I’d finished emptying the draw stones. Those were seeing less and less use, and I had high hopes that the whole village would convert over to storage crystals if they decided to keep this structure. The more likely outcome in my mind was that they’d do away with it entirely once enough of them had ignited cores and this sort of communal collection was no longer necessary.

“How long until you’ve got your scrying thing ready to go, and how much mana are you going to need to power it?” Karad asked. He paused a second, then added, “In terms of how many hours we’re not going to be able to power the ward stone, please.”

“Just to construct it, a day. That shouldn’t use up enough mana to be noticeable. It’ll be like doing a few extra panes of glass for Shel. To power it and actually find someone? Well, it mostly comes down to luck. Will the mage be in the first place I look or the fifth? Is there one there at all? What if there is, but they move from a place I haven’t yet looked to one I already checked and I miss them completely?”

“You’re not reassuring me here,” Karad said.

“I’m not trying to. I’m telling you what I’m going to do and what difficulties I’ll face. You’re a grown man in his forties, you shouldn’t need reassurances from me, not if you plan on running this village.”

“You know, sometimes you can be a jerk.”

“I’ve been called worse,” I said. “Sorry, but I don’t have the time or energy to coddle anyone. I’m trying to work with all of you here, and I appreciate that you’ve been willing to look past my appearance and take me seriously. I also appreciate that I have yet to hear any rumors about me that even come close to approaching the truth. I was sure Melmir would spread it around out of spite, if nothing else.”

Karad snorted. “He probably would if he believed it himself.”

“Be that as it may, I think I’m doing a lot of good for the village. I have confidence that we’ll survive the fallout of Noctra’s schemes.”

“Maybe they’ll look around, confirm he’s dead, and leave us alone,” Karad said.

I snorted, but didn’t say anything. I didn’t have to.

“Our official position remains that we’re unlikely to be bothered by hostile mages,” Karad told me. “Unofficially, I’d appreciate it if you could speed up your work. If you need a bit of extra mana to make it happen, that’s fine by me.”

“Unfortunately, the resource I’m short on is time,” I said. “That’s not something you can help me with.”

“Once you do the blessing ritual on the first group, that’ll help, right?”

“Yes and no. They’ll need even more of my time to actually learn any magic, but if Ayaka can take over ward stone maintenance, that’ll help even things out. Most of the magic I spend my day doing is too advanced to expect any of them to replicate in the next six months. Even the basic tier spells like fire blast aren’t something they’re going to be able to do any time soon. If I had my way, they’d have another two months of training before we even ignited their cores.”

“That long?” Karad asked.

“I won’t actually spend that much time working with them before we do the ritual, but it would be better if I did. It’s a problem of needing the short-term gains now. We’re giving up long-term potential for it.”

“They know that?”

“They do,” I confirmed. “In their heads, at least. I don’t think they really grasp the difference yet.”

Karad let out a frustrated sigh and raked his hand through his hair. “Do what you think is best. Let me know if you need anything.”

Mutely, I nodded. It was good that we were in agreement.

***

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